Waste of Paint
by Kia Saphia
Summary: Kairi seems to have it all...she's rich, popular, loved by all, and has a cute boyfriend...but when she enters a place where troubled kids live isolated from the world, she starts to question her life as she falls in love with a boy behind bars
1. Default Chapter

* * *

**Psychopath: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.**

Kairi's POV  
  
I couldn't believe it had come down to this. How did this all happen? This can't be me. This isn't my life. This is a nightmare. I'll wake up soon. But wait......this can't be a nightmare because I have an unbelieved angel lying in my lap. Oh don't leave me my love. I can't live without you. I need you. DON'T LEAVE ME DAMMIT! Oh my God, I'm going crazy. Wait....going crazy? I AM crazy!! You made me crazy! You made me what I am now! Oh no, I can't blame you. I love you. I love you. I am who I am now because you are a part of me. I REFUSE to live without you. Oh please wake up.  
  
I pushed the orange tablets away and brushed away the wet, sliver hair that was sticking to his forehead. I held him tight. I never wanted to let go. I wanted to melt within him. I wanted to be his eyelash.....a skin cell on his body.....something attached to him. God, how did this happen? Was it really that long ago when I was normal? What the hell is normal anyway? If it's anything then I am defiantly not that. This is so wrong. We loved each other too much. We were to dependent on each other? But would I take this unhealthy romance away? Never.   
  
I kissed Riku's cold cheeks. This is all my fault. If only I hadn't been gone for so long. I lifted my head up and looked around the room. White. Lonely. A bed lying in the corner. His guitar propped against the wall. All his paintings and drawings scattered across the floor. I looked though the glass that had separated us for so long and watched the other lost souls. I could see a girl with long, stringy brown hair putting fresh bandages on her arm. I wondered if she had any new scars. Beside her room was a boy just staring out his window. He looked so vacant, so sad.....waiting, wishing, dreaming, reaching, wanting.....I squeezed Riku tighter. He warned me about this place. He told me not to come back.  
  
"We are lost souls. Don't follow any of us....you'll become lost too. If you listen closely you can hear the song we're all screaming...."  
  
I heard the song. It was playing in my head over and over again.....  
  
In the land of dirt and plaster  
  
Lies an army of a thousand nowhere kids  
  
Losing ground and falling faster  
  
Into a life that no one should have to live  
  
We are the people you hate  
  
We are the bastards that you created  
  
A generation with no face  
  
A generation of all your sons and daughters  
  
Behind the fake family image  
  
Behind the smile of a thousand moms and dads  
  
Inside the cage that we've been given  
  
I see an image of the future that we don't have  
  
We are the people that you hate  
  
The fucking bastards that you created  
  
A generation with no face  
  
A generation of all your sons and daughters  
  
And what did you expect?....A perfect child?  
  
Raised by TV sets.....abandoned every mile  
  
We never get respect.....never a fair trail  
  
No one gives a shit.....as long as we smile  
  
We are the people that you hate  
  
The fucking bastards that you created  
  
A generation with no face  
  
A generation of all your sons and daughters  
  
Everything the human eyes could see was something totally different from the reality of this awful place. What was actually happening was a thousand nowhere kids were reaching, clawing, and pounding onto their cages.....all screaming, crying, and shouting out a story of no happy ending to all the those that did this to them. They could see each other. But no one could see them. Even I can't. I've tried. I've tried so hard.   
  
How did I get here? How did my life boil down to this single portion of time and space? It's funny how a person can have their very lives dangling in the palm of another's hand. And that's how it is now. He has to wake up. He's woken up a thousand times before. Just one more time my love......please....  
  
Man.....I remember how this all started......


	2. The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

**Chp 2: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life**  
  
_Disclaimer: I don't own KH or "Waste of Paint" by Bright Eyes (which is the song this story is based on)._  
  
Kairi opened her eyes to the sun creeping on her face. She looked around at the same room around her. She had a very big room....a queen-sized bed with a silky canopy, real nice furniture, a large window looking out on the field in front of her house, a closet big enough to live in filled with any kind of clothes she could ever want, and she had everything she could ever want....and this big, expensive room one just one of the many extravagantly expensive rooms in the big extravagant she lived in. It was just Kairi and her mom in the mansion.....they had a housekeeper and a chauffer too but that was it. Kairi's dad walked out on the family and now lived in Hawaii somewhere. But Kairi's mom did really well with her life. She was the top psychologist in Destiny Islands, so money for them was obviously never a problem. Kairi got out of her bed and changed into her clothes for school....a purple miniskirt and a yellow shirt that said "Red" on it. She walked down the long stairs and sat down at the breakfast table. Her mom was checking her appointments in her I-Pod while reading the newspaper.  
  
"Hey baby," she said.  
  
"Hi mom.....what whack-jobs do you have to deal with today?"  
  
"Honey! Don't call them "whack jobs". My clients can't help it if they have special needs."  
  
"Well what "clients" with "special needs" do you have to deal with today?" Her mom smirked.  
  
"Oh you know the usual......divorcees, suicidals, clinically depressed people.....that fun stuff. I don't have any calls from Safe House today so that's good."  
  
"Yah....the REAL head jobs are there."  
  
"Well you could say that." One of the maids brought out their breakfast.  
  
"Anyway....I have to go to out of town this weekend for a while?"  
  
"Mommy.....why?" she whined.  
  
"I have a client who needs special attention right now! He tried to sit his wrists last night!" Kairi sighed and ate her oatmeal quietly.  
  
"Oh don't be like that! What do you say after school we go to the mall and have a spending spree?"  
  
"I have cheerleading practice today."  
  
"Well then after cheerleading practice." There was a short silence. Kairi smiled weakly.  
  
"Ok....."

_Destiny Island High School_  
  
Kairi walked into school slightly gripping the straps of her purse.  
  
"Hey Kairi". "Hey Kairi". She often heard. She politely said hey back, even though she didn't know some of the people. She went to her locker where her boyfriend waited for her. She smiled at him.  
  
"Hey Sora!" she said playfully.  
  
"Hey Kairi!" he said back as he pinched her stomach. She put his arm around his neck.  
  
"Wanna go do something after my game today?"  
  
"No I can't.....my mom and I are going to the mall. She's going out of town this weekend for a week."  
  
"A week? Uh oh! We have the house to ourselves?" Kairi smiled and kissed him.  
  
"I got to get to class, bye sweetie!"  
  
Kairi slightly stomped into her class on her hot pink Stiletto pumps. Sora brought up the subject of sex a few weeks ago when they were talking. She knew what he was getting at. He wanted to have sex.....he'd been hinting at it for a while. Kairi wasn't ready. She wanted to lose her virginity to someone he really loved. She wasn't sure if she really loved Sora or not. Kairi sat down in her seat. She had a lot on her mind. The girl in of her turned around.  
  
"Hey Kairi!"  
  
"Hey Yuffie...." She said in a kind of pissed off tone.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"Um.....talk with me after class k?"  
  
"Ok."  
  
"Hey Kairi! Party at my house Friday!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Hey Kairi, love the shoes!"  
  
"Umm....thanks?"  
  
"Kairi."  
  
"Kairi."  
  
"Hey Kairi!"  
  
"Kairi!"  
  
She clenched onto her hair with the palms of her hands over her ears.  
  
Shut up please.....just shut up.

_After school_  
  
Kairi and Yuffie walked away from the school in their cheerleading uniforms arm in arm.  
  
"So what is up with you today?" Yuffie asked, "Is something wrong with you and Sora?"  
  
"No.....well yeah, kinda." Kairi replied.  
  
"Well what?" Kairi sighed as they down sat down on a bench.  
  
"Yuffie, when was the first time you and Leon had sex?"  
  
"Whoa, ya just come right out there and say it don't ya? Umm.....it was the day after Valentine's Day."  
  
"Were you ready?" Yuffie leaned her head down and smiled to herself. There was something enchanting about her smile.....it was so potent, so confident, so happy.  
  
"I wasn't really expecting it, but yeah, I was. I was at that time anyway. We were standing outside Coconuts waiting for it to open because Bright Eyes was doing a free show. It started raining like crazy outside but we waited and got soaked. Eventually, the manager came outside and told us that we had the wrong day and Bright Eyes was coming NEXT week. We were pretty pissed off.....pissed off but it was still hilarious. We got into his truck and drove to his house, where his parents weren't at, half fumed half laughing like crazy. And we ran into his house dripping wet from the rain, laughing like crazy. I jumped into his arms and we were laughing and hugging and we fell onto the couch and just started kissing.....and from then we just....did. We didn't even stop and ask each other of we were ready. We didn't need to. It just felt so natural." There was a few seconds of reflective silence for Yuffie, and then she turned to head and smiled at her friend. Kairi smiled back.  
  
"Sounds like you too are really meant for each other then."  
  
"Yeah, I guess we are. So what did you ask me that for?"  
  
"Well, Sora wants to have sex." Yuffie raised her eyebrows.  
  
"Does he? Wait....he's a guy of course he does. So how do you feel about that?" Kairi shrugged her shoulders.  
  
"You're not ready?" Yuffie asked.  
  
"Not really. I just don't want to have sex unless it's with some one I really love.....and I don't know if I REALLY LOVE Sora."  
  
"Hmm....well I don't know what to tell ya there girly. I can't snap my fingers and make you and Sora Romeo and Juliet."  
  
"Yeah I know....But what do I tell him if I'm not ready?"  
  
"Just tell him you're not ready. It's Sora. If he's a good guy he'll understand." Kairi sighed.  
  
"Yah I guess...." Yuffie put her arm around her friend.  
  
"Aww....cheer up Kai. Things will work out eventually." Kairi smiled.  
  
"Eventually....." Her mom pulled up in her mustang convertible.  
  
"Honey, I have Fernardo the day off! Get it!" Kairi quickly gave Yuffie a hug.  
  
"Bye."

_Later_  
  
"Do you like all your stuff Kai?" Kairi looked in the back seat at the heaps and heaps of bags from chic designer stores.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good. Ok now I'm gonna be away on business for about two w...." Her cell phone rang. That always happened.  
  
"Hello?......Uh huh.....Oh no.....Ok......I'll be right down."  
  
"What is it?" Kairi asked.  
  
"Honey, I'm so sorry but we need to go to Safe House NOW."  
  
"What? Safe House? The freak show? No!"  
  
"Baby, this is urgent stuff! There are teenager's lives at stake. Stop being so selfish!" Kairi frowned. She didn't like being called selfish. She was quiet the rest of the ride there.  
  
Who knew this would be the first day of the rest of her life?

_Safe House_  
  
Kairi sat down in a chair in the waiting room. She was gripping the ends of it. This place scared her. It was a big grey empty waiting room with a few chairs and random pictures on the wall. It was so vacant. She felt like someone was going to creep up on her any minute. She didn't want to sit there and wait for God knows how long it was going to take her mother to get done with whoever she was dealing with. She also wanted to see what the big deal was about this strange place. The person at the register desk wasn't there at the moment. She could see a big white door that said "Patient rooms" on it in black letters. She was extremely tempted. But she knew she could get in deep trouble for going in there. She stared at that door for ten minutes.  
  
"You only live once right?" She walked over to the door and went inside.  
  
The first day of the rest of your life....  
  
Kairi stared with eyes wide open. It was a long white hallway. At first that's all she could see. But she quietly walked down and she could see kids her own age sitting in a room behind a big glass door. She was even more scared now. This place was like a prison....but white. She felt so naked. The kids in their rooms were either staring at her with demon seed eyes or just looking out their windows with blank stares. She felt terrible. She did feel selfish. Who am I to be walking around in front of them? She thought. They can get out though. It's not like they're stuck in their rooms for life. That still didn't change the fact that she felt really uncomfortable. No one was even saying anything to her. For the people in their rooms it was like she wasn't there at all or she is there and she must die. She felt like a million headlights were shining on her. She felt like everyone was shouting something at her but she couldn't hear.  
  
Speak up!  
  
This place was psyching her out. She turned on her heels to leave.  
  
"Leaving so soon?" a voice finally said. She turned around and there he was.  
  
The first day of the rest of your life....  
  
He was strangely beautiful. He had silky silver hair and intoxicating, pierce aqua eyes. His eyes kind of hypnotized her for a while, but she shook her head and focused.  
  
"Umm....well...."  
  
"This place scares you shitless," he interrupted her.  
  
"I uh...."  
  
"You can't even speak! Of course you are!" She glared at him for a while.  
  
"Well maybe I could say something if you would give me a chance." He studied her for a few seconds.  
  
"Oh really? And if I gave you a chance what would you say? You'd lie and say you're not scared. I can see right through you and your $4,000 shoes." Kairi frowned.  
  
"That's kind of judgmental."  
  
"I bet I can draw a line through your life! I bet your mega rich and live in a big fancy mansion and everybody in your little high school worships you and your boyfriend is the star of the football team and all that cheesy teenage novel shit......" Kairi blushed. He smirked.  
  
"Baseball team...." She quietly muttered with her head down.  
  
"I told you. You're so predictable." Kairi fumed.  
  
"I don't appreciate you telling me this stuff. You don't even know me! Who are you to call me predictable? You've been talking to me for no more than three minutes. You are very judgmental." He smiled at her.  
  
"You couldn't draw a line through my life if you tried."  
  
"Why would I want to hear about your life? I'm just a snobby little rich girl."  
  
"Oh yah I forgot."  
  
"Ugh! You are so offending!"  
  
"Blah, blah, blah....all I heard was prep, prep, prep." She was too shocked for words.  
  
"No one talks to ME like that!"  
  
"I'm sure they don't prep."  
  
"Stop calling me that!" she yelled.  
  
"It's true! Why are you hiding from it prep?"  
  
"Ugh! You disgust me! I don't have to listen to this!" She turned around to walk away.  
  
"Don't you want to try and draw a line through my life?" she turned her head.  
  
"NO! You've offended me and I won't succumb myself to listening to anything you have to say."  
  
"Oh yeah?"  
  
"YEAH!" She turned back around and began to walk away. After a while something stopped her. It was the sound of an acoustic guitar. It had kind of a seductive sound to it. She turned around and there he was playing. It was kind of soothing watching him play.....listening to the chords. He was very good. But then she remembered she hated this person and started to back away slowly. But then he started singing. He had a smooth, clear, rather sexy voice. She couldn't help but be sucked in.  
  
I have a friend he is mostly made of pain  
  
He wakes up, drives to work, and then straight back home again  
  
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper  
  
I thought it was beautiful I put it on a record cover  
  
And I tried to tell him that he had a sense  
  
Of color and composition so magnificent  
  
He said "Thank you please, but your flattery  
  
It's truly not becoming me your eyes are poor your blind you see  
  
No beauty could have come from me  
  
I'm a waste of breath, of space, of time  
  
I knew a woman she was dignified and true  
  
Her love for her man was one of her many virtues  
  
Until one day she found out that he had lied  
  
And decided from that point on the rest of her life would be a lie  
  
But she was grateful for everything that had happened  
  
And she was anxious for all that would come next  
  
But then she wept, what did you expect?  
  
In that big old house with the car she kept  
  
"Oh!" and "such is life" she often said  
  
With one day leading to the next  
  
You get a little closer to your death  
  
Which was fine with her, she never got upset  
  
And with all the days she may have left  
  
She would never clean another mess  
  
Or fold his shirts or look her best, she was free  
  
To waste away alone  
  
Last night my brother he got drunk and drove  
  
And this cop he pulled him off to the side of the road  
  
He said "Officer! Officer! You've got the wrong man!"  
  
"No, no I'm a student of medicine. A son of a banker you don't understand."  
  
The cop said "No one got hurt you should be thankful"  
  
"And your carelessness it is something awful" "And no I can't just let you go, and though your father's name is known  
  
Your decisions now are yours alone  
  
You're nothing but a stepping stone on a path  
  
To debt, to loss, to shame"  
  
The last few months I've been living with this couple  
  
Yeah, you know the kind that buy everything in doubles  
  
They fit together like a puzzle  
  
I love their love and I am thankful  
  
That someone actually receives the prize that was promised  
  
By all those fairytales that drugged us  
  
And they still do me, I'm sick, lonely, no laurel tree, just green envy  
  
Will my number come up eventually? Like love's some kinda lottery  
  
Where you scratch and see what's underneath it's sorry  
  
Just one cherry, "Play Again", get lucky  
  
So I have been hanging out down by the train's depot  
  
No, I don't ride, I just sit and watch the people there  
  
They remind me of wind-up cars in motion  
  
The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions  
  
And I wanna scream out that it all is nonsense  
  
And that their lives are one track, and can't they see how it is all pointless?  
  
But then my knees give under me, my head feels weak and suddenly  
  
It's clear to see that it's not them but me who's lost my self-identity  
  
And I hide behind these books I read while scribbling my poetry  
  
Like art could save a wretch like me with some ideal ideology  
  
That no one could hope to achieve  
  
And I am never real it's just a sketch of me  
  
And everything thing I have is trite and cheap and a waste  
  
Of paint, of tape of time  
  
Sometimes I park my car down by the cathedral  
  
Where the floodlights point up at the steeples  
  
Choir practice is filling up with people  
  
I hear the sound escaping as an echo  
  
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle  
  
When the voices blend they sound like angles  
  
I hope there's some room still in the middle  
  
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them  
  
The range is too high, way up in heaven  
  
So I hold my tongue, forget the song  
  
Tie my shoes, start walking off  
  
And try to just keep moving on, with my broken heart and my absent God  
  
And I have no faith but it's all I want to be loved  
  
And believe in my soul  
  
In my soul  
  
He strummed the last chord and hung his head down. He popped it back up and looked right into Kairi's eyes. Kairi found herself being hypnotized during that entire song. She found herself looking at something she couldn't look away from. She wanted to stay. To talk to him. To explore his mind. But she was kind of intimidated by him. She didn't know what to say. She backed slowly away, their eyes still locked onto each other. she was getting further away from him.  
  
"My name's Riku," he said, ".....I'll see you around." Kairi didn't say anything. She just turned around and left. She went back into the waiting room and sat down. Her eyes were wide and she was a tad alienated from the world. Her thoughts were fixated on that moment she just had. That was all her mind would seem to think about. It was hypnotizing. It pulled you into him with strong currents. As she sat in the chair waiting for her mom to get done....the tiniest part of her did know that this was the first day of the rest of her life.


	3. Dye Your Hair Black and Buy Some New Van...

Chp 3: Dye Your Hair Black and Buy Some New Vans  
  
A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in forever but I was in Japan for three weeks and I've pretty much been at nonstop band camp since then AND I just started my junior year, so that's kind of a setback isn't it? Anyway I'm sorry and ON WITH THE STORY!! (PS: It might help you to go back and read the song Riku wrote......you'll see when you read).  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own KH  
  
"My name is Riku."  
  
"Riku."  
  
"Riku."  
  
It kept playing back in her mind.  
  
"Riku."  
  
"Riku."  
  
"Riku."  
  
"Riku."  
  
"KAIRI!"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Kairi returned to reality to find herself sitting in geometry class and everyone was staring at her. Her teacher was looking at her like she was the devil's advocate.  
  
"Miss Kairi, I have been asking you to answer this question for the past thirty seconds now!"  
  
"I'm sorry, what?"  
  
The whole class burst out laughing. The teacher fumed.  
  
"That's it Kairi! This is the last straw! I will not tolerate those who don't pay attention in my class. Go to the office!"  
  
"Ok......" she said meekly. She grabbed her books and left quietly. As she opened the door she could hear them. They were laughing at her. The ones in the back of the class with the tight pants and obscure band t-shirts. The misfits of the school. The so-called "punks" if you're into cliche high school labels. Kairi hated it when they laughed at her. It made her feel so small and alone. She could only imagine what they were saying and it drove her crazy that she didn't know for sure. She wanted to kill them when they talked and laughed behind her back like that.  
  
"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!"  
  
Kairi sat in the chairs lined outside the principal's office, like chairs you sit in as you wait for your prosecution. She gripped the ends of her chair as she waited nervously for the principal to get through talking to the boy that was in the office now. There was only one other girl sitting two chairs away from her. Sitting by her made her feel awkward. She was in her class but they never talked. It's kind of like the awkwardness you feel when you see someone like that at the store. Isn't that the most awkward thing ever? Well take that and multiply it times ten because Kairi had been sitting by this girl for the past fifteen minutes. She looked at the girl's clothes. She was wearing black Converse, baggy black pants with safety pins holding in the rips, and a tight red zip-up hoodie. Her dark hair with red streaks was in two grungy pigtails and her eyes were heavy outlined in eyeliner. Kairi felt very generic in her clothes. She looked down and saw herself wearing grey New Balances, one of those cute little flowy skirts that everyone has in baby blue, and a purple Abercrombie and Fitch shirt. And to top it all off she had one of those clear pink bags that had a "K" on it in blue. Can we get more generic? Kairi felt like she was on fire next to this girl. She prayed that someone would wrap her in a blanket and roll her away to save her. There was a VERY awkward silence in the air for quite some time now that was absolutely killing Kairi so she decided to break it.  
  
"So what are you in for?" she said meekly. The girl's response couldn't have been more direct.  
  
"Don't talk to me you fucking prep." Kairi was shocked. Her eyes grew wide and she tightened up a bit.  
  
"Oh I'm sorry princess.....are you not used to people giving the shit to you straight? Are you used to everyone being all hip-hap happy, fake, and worshiping around you? ARE YOU?" She still didn't say anything. She grew white with astonishment.  
  
"That's what I thought bitch. Well sorry your highness, but I'm not gonna worship you like some damn Greek goddess!!"  
  
"What the hell is your problem?" Kairi finally said back, "I asked you a simple question and you jumped all over me!"  
  
"Oh cry me a river bitch. You wouldn't have talked to me if some other cheerleader whore was here or some fucking jock or another anonymous prep. You just talked to me because there was no one else and you have NEVER said a word to me before. Shit, do you even know my name bitch?" Kairi drew a blank line. She bent her head down in defeat.  
  
"Hah! That's what I thought. Go flip your cute little skirt around and put on more 50 dollar lip gloss and just fuck off ok?" White hot tears of rage built in Kairi's eyes.  
  
"Your such a bitch! You don't even know ME! How can you treat people like this! I'm not just some high and mighty perfect kid who's drained of all emotion ok?"  
  
"Oh look at me....I'm a pretty rich girl with problems!!" she mocked, "Don't EVEN start with the 'I'm not like everybody else shit'. LOOK AT YOURSELF! You look like you just walked out of a fucking Abercrombie and Fitch magazine. I mean look at your........" She continued to go on. Blow after blow after blow. Kairi clasped her hands tightly over her ears. She didn't want to hear a single thing. She couldn't take it.  
  
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.  
  
"SHUT UP!" she finally screamed out loud this time. That got her attention. She stopped bitching at her and stared with wide eyes waiting for what she had to say next.  
  
"Ok honey......you wanna talk generic and cliche huh? Ok, let's look at YOU. Black pants.....black Converse.....heavy eyeliner. You are just another one of your own cliche...... 'oh I'm so emo, nobody knows me! I'm gonna wear black and make fun of preps!' You think you are SO unique, but you're not! You're just part of a trend that's different from my own. NO ONE in the world is completely original. Everything we say and everything we've ever worn SOMEONE has said it or worn it before. So go dye your hair black and buy some new Vans bitch!" This time Kairi's eyes didn't grow wide. The girl just stared at her as if she was Martin Luther King Jr. And had just given the "I Have a Dream" speech. There was silence as Kairi stared at the girl in vengeance knowing that she had her completely vindicated. The principal stepped out of his office.  
  
"Kairi...." He motioned for her to come in. She didn't say anything and just grabbed her purse and got up. As she was about to go in the girl finally spoke up.  
  
"My name is Mandy." Kairi turned around and looked at her. They locked onto each other for a few seconds then Kairi nodded her head and walked into the office.  
  
He had become an obsession to her. All Kairi could think about was Riku and his song. It was destroying her. She HAD to see him again. If she saw him it would be all better. She could see him and then she would stop worrying about the whole damn thing.  
  
"Why am I so strung out about a boy I barely know? A boy that I was at first disgusted by?" Kairi went back to Safe House. She stole a card to get in from her mom. She didn't even notice. She found herself back in the place that gave her chills to even drive by so easily. The kids where still there. All lined up in there cages staring longingly out into the world outside of them. They didn't even look at Kairi like she was their prey. They all just glared up at her with empty eyes. She wished they would stare at her with eyes to kill. She wish they would bang on their walls and shout offensive things like "whore" at her. She felt terrible. Just walking in front of her made her feel as selfish as a man who refused to give food to a starving child. She found him. She found herself holding her breath and getting very nervous. Everything inside of her kind of lifted. He looked up at her. He smiled. It was the most beautiful smile in the world.  
  
"I knew you'd be back......" Kairi shrugged her shoulders.  
  
"I'm so predictable right?"  
  
"Right," he laughed. There was a silence in the air that wasn't so awkward as the two gazed at each other. Kairi could almost feel the love from this boy pouring out of his eyes. It made her never want to look away.  
  
"So....." Riku finally said, "what brings you here again?"  
  
"Ummm......." Kairi thought about that for a minute.  
  
Ummm.......I can't stop thinking about you. You're the only thing on my mind. I go to sleep at night and have sexual fantasies about you.  
  
"I don't know," she replied.  
  
"Liar," he said back. Kairi frowned. She didn't like her bluff to be called out in such a way.  
  
"Whatever......"she said back in a snotty tone.  
  
"What-EVER!" He mocked back.  
  
"Ok smart ass......I liked your song ok?" There was silence for a few moments as Riku smiled at her in satisfaction.  
  
"Did you now?"  
  
"Well yeah.....it was good."  
  
"Kinda had you up all night didn't it?" Kairi froze up a little on the inside. It was like he could read her like an open book.  
  
"No......nothing like that. I just admired your writing skills and wanted to know where you got the inspiration for it." Riku grew silent. His face kind of paled.  
  
"You want to know where I got the inspiration for that song?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Are you sure. You know I'm a kid who's in Safe House. I'm crazy. The stories I have may break your heart."  
  
"Oh come on it can't be that bad......" Riku still remained glassy eyed and stern.  
  
"You know they send kids to Safe House when they're as fucked up as you get right? We're here because there was nowhere else we could go. No one else could take us. Therapy gave up on us. This place is just cover-up for a strenuous suicide watch. Shit, the chicks can't even shave their legs unless a nurse s We can't even eat with forks and knives! This is the floor that we can't fall below. This is the place where we're forced to live life when all we do is pray that we'll wake up and die, and you want me to tell you the inspiration I got for one of my songs." Kairi grew afraid know. She was afraid he'd yell at her. That he'd kill her if it was possible.  
  
"Well........if you don't want to....." she said in a clearly frightened tone. Riku sighed and hung his head low. He looked like a child who had just witnessed war in front of his eyes. Kairi wanted to cry she felt so bad. She'd never seen anything more beautiful or sad in her entire life. She wanted to break though the glass and take him in her arms and never let go.  
  
I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!  
  
"Ok......" Riku said. "I'll tell you." Kairi had tears in her eyes.  
  
"You don't have to really....."  
  
"No! I want to. Maybe it'll give you more reason to come visit me so I can see your gorgeous face again." Kairi grew red. A strange feeling crawled through her. No one had ever called her gorgeous before. It was always hot......but never gorgeous. It made her feel special. She smiled at him.  
  
"Ok......well the part at the beginning. What was it again?"  
  
"I have a friend he is mostly made of pain."  
  
"Yes.....what is that about?"  
  
"That was after I ran away from my second foster home and I was living with my friend Daniel. We lived in this shitty little apartment that we could barely afford, but it was good times. We'd live off our pocket change. Get high. Get laid. It was great. It was one of the few times in my life that I was actually happy. He was the best friend I'd ever had. I loved him very much. I would've died for that guy. He was a true friend. But at that time he was almost as fucked up as I am now. When he was growing up, his parents hated him for some reason and always put him down. They made him feel like he was scum. Nothing he did was ever good enough. They made him believe that he was nothing. So after all those years of emotional abuse he developed this disease where his mind wouldn't take in any good thing people said about him and he'd only remember what his parents told him. Like seriously......he got laid by so many hot emo chicks who all told him he was the most beautiful thing in the world and they all where like freakin in love him and would've dropped anything just to be with him but no matter what all he could remember was the awful things his parents said about him. He was an AWESOME artist too. Everything he made was absolutely beautiful and I would sit for hours and try to tell him what he made was too awesome for words but he would never believe me. Some days he'd disappear for days trying to "find himself" and he'd come back REALLY fucked up and telling me all these bizarre stories. Well one day it was like he went completely delusional.....like he'd lost all contact with the world. I couldn't even talk to him because everything I'd say he couldn't hear me you know? That day he left on one of his trips.......and he never came back. I found out later that he was found dead in an alley 100 miles away from where we lived. He was diagnosed with five different forms of pain killers, ecstasy, and horse tranquilizers. He was the most beautiful person but he wouldn't believe it if you told him. I lost the best friend I'd ever had and had go live with another foster home."  
  
Kairi didn't know what to say to that. She was speechless. The story he told broke her heart just to hear it and he told it effortlessly. Like it was no big thing. Like it was just the same old same old for him. Kairi eyes grew glassy and her grew warm.  
  
"I'll show you a picture of him if you want," Riku said after the very long silence.  
  
"Ok....." Kairi managed to choke out. He got up and pulled a big black book out from under his bed. The corners of it were worn and you could tell that book had been through a lot. He opened it and many papers fell onto the floor.  
  
"Shit....." he said under his breath. He put the papers back and pulled out a worn out picture. He set the book down and walked back over to Kairi.  
  
"Well this is Daniel......" he said. He pressed the picture up against the glass. Kairi was astonished.  
  
"Oh my gosh....."  
  
"Yeah...." Riku was right. He was beautiful. He had shiny, straight brown hair that stopped just at his chin and was parted to one side. His skin was perfectly milky and his eyes were wide and brown. His eyes were mystifying. It was like they were telling a story to you, but you could see in his eyes that there was a story of hurt behind him.  
  
"Wow.....I can't believe he never knew how beautiful he was."  
  
"Yeah, life sucks like that doesn't it?" Kairi gave him a strange and baffled look. This was a huge tragedy and it was almost like he was joking about it.  
  
"Anyway do you wanna hear the next part?" he said with no hint of sorrow in his voice. Kairi sighed.  
  
"Sure....."  
  
"I knew a woman who was dignified and true......In that part of the song I was talking about this foster family that I lived with. I actually really liked them. That was another time when I was actually happy. I lived with this couple.....Faith and Jared. They had no kids so it was just us. Faith couldn't have kids but she always wanted them. It was weird because most of my foster families has treated me like shit and those people were the first family that actually treated me with love and respect. I liked Faith more than Jared. Jared was always away on business trips so it was just Faith and I most of the time. I had some of the best times with her. She tried so hard to be like a protective mother to me.....and she was. I loved Faith. She was such a pure and good-natured soul, and she loved her husband very much. She loved Jared so much it blinded her. It absolutely broke her heart whenever he had to leave. It was so sad. She could barely sleep or eat until he came home. Then one day Jared was about to leave and Faith was in her room crying. I couldn't take being a shoulder for Faith to cry on anymore so I went to call my girlfriend at the time. I picked up the phone but Jared was already on the other line.......he was talking to this women. He was saying stuff about how he was about to leave and he couldn't wait to see her and what they were gonna do when he got there. I forze. I felt absolutely sick. I then realized what all those "business trips" were. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout out obscene and awful things into the phone. But I sat stodd there like a sucker and listened to what they were saying absolutely paralyzed. Then Faith came and saw me on the phone. She asked me what was going on. I fucked out. I couldn't even say anything. What could I say? I'll never forget the look on her face as she took the phone away from me and put the speaker up to her ear. I'll never forget how the smile faded away from her face like rose petals wilting to the table which it laid. I'll never forget how the color drained from her face. And I'll never forget the awful screams she made as she broke down on the floor and cried like a child. I tried to calm her down. I tried to convince her that Jared was a horrible vermin douche bag that didn't even deserve to walk among the air which she graced like an angel. I tried to tell her things could be worse. She wouldn't listen to me. I felt completely powerless and frustrated. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!" I screamed out. Then I left the house and let her cry......"  
  
Riku grew silent and bent his head down as tears started to form in his eyes. Kairi breathed deeply and tried to hold back her sea of tears. She could barely make Riku out through her blurry eyes. Her face was pale as flour and the blotches on her face were so red it made blood look like child's play.  
  
"I was angry with her......I was angry with her. I WAS ANGRY WITH HER GOD DAMNIT!" he shouted as he pounded his fist into the ground with a look to kill on his face.  
  
"When I came back from my girlfriend's house, I opened the door to the bathroom and there she was.......swallowed by a bath tub dyed red with her own blood."  
  
The look on Riku's face, even though it had absolutely no expression, absolutely broke Kairi's heart.  
  
"I was getting head from my girlfriend while Faith was slitting her wrists......"  
  
It was like he had gone off into a trance. His eyes were wide and emotionless and his face remained with no expression. You could almost hear the thoughts in my head.  
  
"It's all my fault....It's all my fault....It's all my fault. It's all my FUCKING fault!!"  
  
Kairi took in a deep, tear-filled breath and tried to calm him down.  
  
"It's not your fault! She didn't do it because of you! It was that ass hole Jared's fault. RIKU? Are you listening to me? It was Jared. NOT YOU! RIKU? Can you hear me?!"  
  
But he couldn't hear her. He was off in another world. A world of grief and sorrow that he had to face all on his own. A red light started to flash.  
  
"Oh shit!" Riku said, "Kairi you have to go! They have detected "turbulence" from me. So you have to go NOW! They're gonna shoot some drugs up my veins and I'll pass out for several hours."  
  
"WHAT?!" She shouted in disgust.  
  
"Just GO! GO!"  
  
Kairi didn't want to go. She wanted to stay with him. She wanted to stay so he would know she would wait for him. She would listen to him. That it was gonna be ok. Kairi stared into Riku's eyes. She wanted to cry.  
  
"I'll be back....." she said. And with that she took off running down the hall. 


	4. I Can't Let You Let Me Down Again

Chp 4: I Can't Let You Let Me Down Again

A/N: My computer got fucking SpyWare so that's why i haven't updated in forever THIS time......But anyway, I'd like to thank all of you for the kick-ass reviews I've been getting. It really helps a lot.....a lot of the times i'll write something and be like "wow this blows" but I'll read it to my best friend and he'll be crying it was so beautiful (apparently). Whenever that happens I'm just like "yeah whatever" but after I read my reviews I thought "Maybe the things are write ARE kind of ok". So muchas gracias to all. Since my computer has had SpyWare for so long this chapter is going to be kind of short. You will all come to find that some chapters just include one in-depth look into a story of Riku's life instead of brief incite into several stories in one chapter.

Disclamier: I don't own KH or "Seventy times Seven" by Brand New (awesome band). This chapter is just gonna go right to Kairi and Riku talking by the way.

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"Hi," Kairi said.

"Hi."

"How are you?"

"Fine, thank you for asking."

"I was shocked by yesterday. just can't believe they drug you up when you get out of hand like that."

"Oh it's ok....I didn't mind at all. It's the only high we can get here. It's the only thing we have to lift us in the slightest bit. The only reason people don't freak out on purpose is because we've been so deprived of emotion for so long we've forgotten how some things feel......anger, joy, beauty......we can't fake emotions if we don't know how we're supposed to feel."

"Oh....." Kairi said softly. She felt so bad. Hearing him talk like this broke her spirits yet intrigued her on a level no other person had reached before.

"So what all did you do before you were sent to Safe House?"

"What? You mean drugs?"

"Yeah...."

"Everything. Everything you could possibly imagine. Pot. Coke. Acid. Ecstasy. Anything I could get my hands on I took.....and I could get my hands on a lot. In the last years of my life before I came here I was fucked ALL the time. I even came to school like that one day. I had OD'd on painkillers and horse tranquillizers."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to die," he replied very clearly.

"Oh...."

"Of couse I didn't last for more than one period. My 1st period teacher escorted me to the office where I got arrested. If the damn school police officer hadn't slapped my back and made me throw up I would've died."

"Oh my gosh...."

"I had to go to Juvi after that. I stayed in there for two months. My foster family I had then disowned me and when I got out I was sent to a new one."

"That's horrible! You must've felt terrible!"

"I actually didn't really care about it all. The whole time I was in there I only cared about one thing....."

"What was that?"

"Jesse.....my best friend. She was so pretty. She had shiny dark hair that was short but but she always wore it in a little ponytail. She would wear her bangs in her face and it would make you feel so happy to see her innocent, childlike face gazing back at you. She had big brown eyes that you could read like an open book, and a smile that could bring light to a world in darkness. She had such a bright spirit. If you were sad, she was the type who you would completely forget your troubles if you just hung around her for even a second. Everybody absolutely adored her.....and I was her best friend. She picked me. I couldn't believe it either. I broke her heart and treated her like crap."

"How did you do that?" Kairi asked.

"We started going out like RIGHT after my ex-girlfriend had just broken up with me. The problem was Jesse and I really didn't know anything about each other. We had a very strong connection with each other. See......we had seen each other around a lot and we knew each other's faces and we knew each other's names but we just didn't really KNOW each other. She litterally just walked up to me and burst out in random conversation one night. We talked mildy for the few weeks that followed but there was an undeniable connection between us. I would always find myself hugging her even though I didn't even know her that well. I got suspended for a week for busting this kid's head through a bus window and when I came back it was like she was waiting for me the whole time. That weekened we had this incredible night together and our bodies just wound up attached to each other and we cuddled and laughed and acted crazy for the rest of the night. It was so much fun. After that night, I was anticipating every second before I could see her again. We started going out the next day for a while it was great. Little things she'd do would make me feel so wonderful. She would lay her head on my shoulder and no matter how noisy it was, this feeling of peace would come to me and it was like we were the only two people in the world. She's kiss me on the cheek and her red lip prints would leave their marking on my heart. But after a while the fact that we really didn't know each other took it's toll on us......that and I still had feelings for my ex-girlfriend. I broke up with her over the phone. Listening to her cry made me feel like it was the end of the world and everyone was dying. We said nothing to each other for about a month, but around December we slowly started talking again. We grew closer and closer day by day until we knew everything about each other. We left for Christmas break. We didn't see each other for three weeks but we talked on the phone every second we possibly could. When I saw her again it was one of the happiest feelings in the world. I held her tightly as she kissed me with her soft, cold lips. I could feel so much love pouring out of her with every fingertip she layed on my skin. Everyday we spent after that was amazing......for a while at least......"

"......What happened?"

"What I did to her was completely sick......I feel like complete shit trying NOT to think about it."

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to......."

"No....." he said slowly, "I'll tell you."

He took a deep breath.

"After Christmas break we never really OFFICIALLY started going back out again we were just kind of together......it was understood that I had her and she had me and no one else could take us. Well, the family I was living with then liked to go capming a lot. I would go almost every weekend. A lot of other kids my age were always there. I became friends with all of them quickly. I was closest to one girl in particular......her name was Tyndell. Well, since Jesse and I weren't necessarily going out I had it set in my mind that there was absolutely no crime in flirting with her......and so I did. But flirting with her slowly began to grow into something greater, and the whole time I was still "with" Jesse. I pretty much fell in love with Tyndell behind Jesse's back, and the whole time I continued to be with her. I would try to grow distant from Jesse but it would never work. We were together the whole time Tyndell and I had our affairs going on......I eventually had to drop the axe on her one day. I told her that I was in love with Tyndell. I'll never forget how she cried that night.......to this day I still have not felt worse about anything I've ever done.....And it didn't stop there. I would tell Jesse absolutely EVERYTHING about Tyndell. Every fight we had.....every kiss, every weekend we spent together, and every romantic moment Jesse would hear about it. The things I told her never left her head. She could tell our stories better than I could. It absolutely destroyed her."

A look of complete disgust grew on Kairi's face.

"So you're telling me that you led this girl on.....screwed her over.....and threw it all in her face?" Riku bent his head down in shame.

"Riku...... I'm sorry, but that is sick. You don't DO that to people......What the hell were you thinking?"

"SHUT UP!" He yelled. "I know.....I know....I know.....I know.....I KNOW god damnit! I deserve to die and I didn't deserve her friendship. I KNOW! I know all of this and she knew it too, but she still loved me anyway."

"God.....that is messed up."

"I know......"

"So what happened with her and Tyndell and everything?"

Riku's face grew stormy.

"Is it that bad?" Kairi asked. Riku let out a heavy sigh.

"The months that went on after that were mixed. My relationship with both girls was like a roller coaster ride. Tyndell and I continued to love each other very much but we would find ourselves on the brink of breaking up a lot because her family hated me and we gradually started seeing less and less of each other. Meanwhile, Jesse and I had a very bipolar friendship. For about three months straight we did nothing but fight and yet we still remained friends, but it was a very unhealthy relationship for both of us. Things did get better however, and we became closer and closer as time passed. Even though at that time we were better friends than either of us had ever hoped to be, Tydnell was always there to come between us. Jesse would still be sad, and jealous, and heartbroken and there was nothing either of us could do about it. It was a pretty depressing situation. That however all changed one day......Tyndell kept accusing me of cheating on her with Jesse and we just kept fighting about her over and over and over again until one day Tyndell broke up with me. I was crushed. What I did was totally uncalled for. I got really shit-faced drunk, cut my arm some, went to Jesse's house, and told her what happened. When I said that Tyndell broke up with me Jesse freaked out. She was really upset for me. That was Jesse for you......she was always more concerned about the problems of others than she was her own. But then I started screaming at her and telling her it was all her fault and that I hated her and never wanted to see her again.....etc. I know we got into a huge, screaming, tear-filled fight after that but I can't even remember what we said to each other because I passed out on her lawn. You'd think she'd just leave me there to die but she didn't......I woke up in her bed around 2:15 the next afternoon. I looked to my side to see that Jesse had fallen asleep in a chair beside the bed. Her head was lying at my side and she was holding the hand of my arm that she bandaged up. That sight made me cry. It was like the portrait of our friendship.....No matter how bad I mistreated her she would always to be there to cradle me and make sure I felt loved and safe. When she woke up we had a very long talk. I explained to her how heart-broken I was and that I needed time to myself to be alone. She said she understood and told me she loved me very much but that she was really worried about me. She said that she was really terrified of the fact that she may not be there to take me in her room and wrap up my scars the next time something like this would happen. I got down on my knees, took her hands in mine, looked her straight in the eyes and swore to her that she had nothing to worry about.....that I was going to be strong and get through this on my own. I told her to slit my throat if I was lying when I swore to her that I would be there for her to return all the love she had for me when the time came."

"And that was when you came to school OD'd didn't you?" Kairi asked. Riku sighed and nodded his head.

"It wasn't even a week after I had made my promise to her. I hadn't seen her all morning. I mean, yeah I was completely fucked up and had absolutely NO grasp on reality but I know for a fact that I did not see her before school started that morning.....I can feel the presence of those close to me no matter what state I'm in. You know how I said that if that school patrol guy hadn't slapped my back and made me throw up I would've died?"

"Yeah....."

"Well after I threw up I lifted up my head and things started to get less blurry and that's when I was slowly being dragged away from the school in handcuffs.....and that's when I saw her. I remember exactly what she was wearing. I remember exactly what her hair looked like. And I remember exactly how the look of pure sorrow and complete betrayal and disgust for me formed on her beautiful face......And that was the last time I ever saw Jesse Parker."

"Oh my God......" Kairi choked through her tears from this sad tale.

"When I was in Juvi I wanted her to just come and visit me so much. I wanted to see her through the glass and hear her voice speak through the black phone so I could hear her say that she loved me and that she would always be there for me just one more time......but of course that day never came......"

Kairi started to sob softly.

"......Instead I got this......" Riku pulled out the black notebook she had seen before and pulled out two papers that were attached together.

"The one on top is a letter that Jesse sent me in Juvi......." Riku said this with a voice full of sorrow. Kairi knew this wouldn't be good....

**Jesse's Letter**

Dear Riku.......

Back in school they never told us what we needed to know

Like how to deal with despair or someone breaking your heart

For twelve years I've held it all together but a night like this is begging to pull me apart

I waited quiet left you deep in conversation

I felt uncool and hung out around the kitchen

I remember I kept thinking that I know you never would

And now I know I wanna kill you like only a best friend could

Everyone's caught on to everything you do

Everyone's caught on to

As if this happening wasn't enough

I've got to go and write a song just to remind myself hoe bad it sucked

Ignore the sun, cover's over my head

Wrote a message on my pillow that says "Jesse stay asleep in bed."

So don't apologize

I hope you choke and die

Search your cell for something in which to hang yourself

They say you need to pray if you want to go to heaven

But they don't tell you what to say when your whole life has gone to hell

Everyone's caught on to everything you do

Everyone's caught on to

And I can't let you let me down again

I can't let you let me down again

So is that what you call a getaway

Tell me what you got away with

Cause i've seen more spine in jellyfish

I've seen more guts in 11-year-old kids

Have another drink and drive yourself home

I hope there's ice on all the roads

And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt

And again when your head goes through the windshield

Is that what you call tact?

You as subtle as a brick in the small of my back

So let's end this call and end this conversation

And is that what you call a getaway

Tell me what you got away with

Cause you left the frays of ties you severed

And when you say best friend means friends forever

Is that what you call a getaway

Tell me what you got away with

Cause I've seen more spine in jellyfish

I've seen more guts in eleven-year-old kids

Have another drink and drive yourself home

I hope there's ice on all the roads

And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt

And again when your head goes through the windshield

Everyone's caught on to everything you do

Everyone's caught on to

And I can't let you let me down again

I can't let you let me down again

And that was the end of the letter. Kairi looked at Riku's blank face with eyes that were spilling out the story of how awful it was to recieve this letter from the only person you cared about in a life that was so easy to let go of. Kairi couldn't imagine what it would be like just to receive this letter on a regular day, and would never understand the agony of receiving this letter in jail from your best friend.

"She wanted me to die in my sleep.....or get raped by a jail gang......" Riku said softly. Kairi opened her mouth and tried to say "No she didn't" but she couldn't bring herself to say it with that letter in her hands.

"There's a picture I drew of her on the back......it's the picture of the last time I ever saw her."

The picture made Kairi want to cry. Jesse stood tall in her dress and black jacket with the background of the school's lobby behind her, and under her dark bangs was the saddest face in the world. It was a painful mix between overwhelming sorrow and raging anger. It was the kind of face that would make you want to die if someone ever gave it to you.

"She's beautiful....." Kairi said.

"Yes she is.....She was the most beautiful person in the world. She was the kindest person I had ever met. She was more my family than any of my foster families OR my real family ever was. I didn't deserve the privilege of talking to her much less being her best friend. She was so much better than anyone in that school and everyone in that town. I just hope so much that all her dreams in life will come true and that one day she will find someone who will love her and respect her as much as she deserves.....and a hell of a lot more than I ever did. Whoever that lucky guy is will have a much better life because she is in it, and I would like to shake his hand for bringing all the joy that he will bring to her someday."

There was a silence in the air for several moments. Kairi watched Riku through his glass cage. His head was bent down and he sighed occaisionally, letting out the leftover emotion from just another sad story in his life. Kairi wanted to break through the glass. She wanted to wrap her arms around Riku and never let go. She wanted to kiss away the tears from his face and the scars on his arms. They would stay with their arms wrapped around each other as if that one moment in life would never end and Kairi would be able to feel all the love from him pouring into her soul. It was killing Kairi that she couldn't do any of these things. She wiped away a stray tear from her face and slowly lifted her hand and pressed it against the glass. Riku lifted his head up quickly. He saw Kairi's hand pressed against the glass and gazed into her gorgeous purple eyes with strands from her short brown hair lightly falling over them. She looked so beautiful to him right then. He was hesitant to respond her though. His gaze lept shifting form her hand to her face. He slowly lifted his shaking hand and pressed it lightly against the glass where Kairi had placed hers. After he did he gazed up at Kairi who was smiling brightly and him. He smiled softly back at her as their hands sinked into eachother through the glass cage that separated them.

"Would you like to hear the rest of my story about the song?" Riku asked quietly. Kairi nodded.

"Yes....." She said. And Riku went on to share the rest of his sad story with their hands still pressed into each other.......


	5. The First Time

**Chp 5: The First Time**

Disclamier: I don't own KH

**

* * *

**

Riku and Kairi sat on the cold hard ground as they talked to each other......Riku in his cage and Kairi on the outside.

"So the next part of the song is 'Last night my brother he got drunk and drove'....."

"You have a brother?" Kairi asked.

"Somewhere....." Riku sighed as he brushed the bangs away from his eyes.

"What do you mean?" When Kairi asked that Riku's demeanor changed completely. A sour look grew on his face and gave Kairi a look of distrust, as if he'd just met her and she asked him a personal question. Or a look you would give someone who would not stop fucking talking when you're in a bad mood and want some peace.

"You know what, don't you get tired of hearing all the mellow-dramatic sob stories of my shitty little life?" Riku said in a stern voice. It caught Kairi kind of off gaurd.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Don't give me that, I wanna know......Why do you give a fuck? You could be using this time to buy shoes or something rich girl."

These words he spoke cut Kairi like a hot knife into her pale, cold skin. He had spoken like this to her when she first saw him and it upset her then, but now it stung even harder. She felt kind of betrayed, like she had just been abandoned by her best friend.....or forgotten to be picked up by her mother at the park. Tears started to form in the back of Kairi's eyes.

WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT YOU FUCKING BITCH!

Kairi put her palms on the ground behind her and started to scoot away from the cage as she was shaking all over. She was crying now. This was a situation and mental sight that was all too familar to Riku. He scooted himself to the end of his cage and pressed his fists against the glass.

"Kairi.....I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. It was uncalled for. I'm so sorry. Kairi? Kairi!" She continued to cry.

"You bitch.....you ass hole!"

"Kairi, I'M SORRY! I didn't mean it. I have problems controlling my anger.....seriously. I'm a pshyco remember?" Kairi slowly started to stop crying. She wiped her tears from her pale cheek and sniffed a few times.

"Why do you have to be so bipolar?"

"Kairi......if you lived the life I have lived, you would be bipolar too." Kairi didn't say anything to him and remained backed away from Riku with a pained expression. Riku sighed.

"Kairi....I'm sorry. I have a bad habit of taking my anger out on people that don't deserve it. It's how I've always been for as long as I can remember and it just grew worse as the years passed. That's why I never had that many friends. And the friends I had, I loved dearly because they cared about me enough to take in all the anger I took out on them. I'm so sorry for hurting your feeling Kairi, but I promise, I have no control over it." Kairi wiped her eyes and thought about he had said for a while.

"Press your arms up against the glass...." Kairi said, "where your palms are facing me." Riku's eyes grew wide and panicked when he asked her this. He opened his mouth as if to say something in protest but bent his head down, and with a heavy sigh he pressed his arms against the glass. Kairi raised her eyebrows in a manner to show that she wasn't suprised at what she found there. Brown lines drawn so straight and varying in size and depth littered his arm. Kairi sighed. She raised her fingertips to the glass and brushed it over his scarred arm.

"Well it's better that you take your anger out on other people than on anything else."

"No it's not," Riku said firmly, "Taking my anger out on other people is what fucked me in life. Taking my anger out on people is what caused Jesse to hate me, it's what caused Faye to kill herself, it's what....." Riku stopped in the middle of what he was saying. His eyes grew wide in a strange and almost paranormal way. He then let out a gasp and gripped his fingers into his hair. He rocked himself back and forth like a little child.

"Riku....." Kairi said in a worried tone as she sat up on her knees. He stopped rocking and slowly loosened the grip on his hair.

"It's the reason why I lost everything.....why no one could love a sick bastard like me......" Kairi bent her head down in sorrow as a single tear escaped quickly from her eyes and landed on the ground. Kairi's reddened eyes stared deeply at Riku as he stayed huddled up with his head towards the ground. Kairi felt sick. All she wanted to do more than anything in the world was to break through the damned glass that separated them and take him in her arms and never let go. She would run his fingers through his silver hair and he would squeeze his arms around her waist. Occasionally she would kiss the top of his head and time would pass with a blink of an eye as Kairi would feel all the love from him pouring into her soul like water out of a tall glass. This was just a fanatasy that couldn't be and it absolutely broke Kairi's heart. Her nails started to dig into the glass that her hand was placed upon. Riku noticed this and lifted his head. Tiny lines in the glass formed under Kairi's nails. Kairi's eyes were penetrating and tear-filled. Riku stared back into her eyes deeply. They remained in a deadly locked gaze with Kairi digging into the glass for quite some time. Riku then pressed his hand on the glass and smiled at her. A tear fell from Kairi's face as she stopped digging her nails into the glass and pressed her hand into Riku's. She smiled back at him.

"This is the story of my brother....." Riku began softly.

"Ok...." Kairi replied.

"My brother Kato was the only person in my family who even showed interest in me much less loved me. He was all my parents cared about.....my dad more so than my mom. But I guess you would in my family. Kato was a parent's wet dream. He made good grades, he was quarterback of the football team, he had all these ivy league schools begging to get him in, blah blah blah, all that shit. I didn't really stand out at all in my family. What the fuck did I do? I was a mediocore student who wrote crappy poetry. At that time, I never even got into trouble, making me even more invisible. My brother was the only one who encouraged my writing. He always read everything I wrote. Kato was actually the first person to read ANYTHING I wrote. He even taught me how to play guitar, which I can't even begin to descirbe how grateful I am for that because without music I would be dead. Even though I was pushed aside by my parents I didn't care because I loved my brother a lot. My brother more my dad than my real dad ever was. It was when I turned fourteen when my whole world fell apart. By then, Kato was in medical school and was doing very well. It was clear to see that he had a very good career ahead of him.......I remember it was a cold night in December. He made me a promise that stood through everything in life....."If you're ever in trouble just call me and I'll come get you". At that time I was dating a girl who was sixteen and would do stuff with me. The only reason it went on as long as it did was because she thought I was sixteen as well. One night we were out parking in her car.....one minute we're rounding second base and the other it somehow slipped out that I was fourteen and she freaked out and drove off, ditching me in the parking lot. I felt bad about calling my brother and asking him to take me home. There was noise in the background of his cell phone so I could tell he was at a party. Ripping Kato from his fun to pick up his poor little brother made me feel like such an ass, but it was nothing compared to what would happen next. My brother slightly swerved as he drove his car up to me. I could tell he was drunk. Since there was no point in telling him not to drive I just got in the car. It was like one in the morning, Kato was a very good drunk driver, AND he was beginning to sober up so I figured he could get away with it. You can guess what happened next due to the tradgic irony in my life. I'll never forget how the worst guilt anyone could ever feel creeped through my skin as Kato pulled over and kept saying "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." as he violently beat on the dashboard. He then turned his head to me and said "Riku get the fuck out of this car. I don't want the fuzz seeing you in here so just GO!" I felt like crying as I hurried out the door and ran to the bushes. I saw the cop walk up to his open window and the look of fear in Kato's eyes was undescribable. "Have you been drinking?" the cop asked, and of course Kato said no. But a quick alcohol test later and Kato was up against the car as the cop was putting handcuffs on his wrists. The guilt I felt was overwhelming. I wanted to die. It ran through my skin and into my heart like hot lead. I gripped my hands hard into my hair and I could hear the strands breaking one by one. You could see the all the opportunity in Kato's life that dissapeared pouring out of his sad brown eyes."

Kairi was speechless. The only thought she had in her head was 'how could anyone live with themself after that?'.

"Kato was already down.....The knife had been stuck in his back put that damn cop would now twist that knife. What he told Kato then would ruin his life...."

"What did he say?" Kairi asked as she wiped her eyes.

"Kato was giving the classic mercy speech. He begged the cop not to arrest him and told him he was about to graduate medical school and that our father was a well-known man.....blah, blah. blah. The cop rambled a bit about how no one was hurt and he was very lucky and he couldn't believe how careless he was being. But as I layed freezing and guilty behind that bush, I will always remember how you could see the very soul draining out of my brother as he listened with his head low to what the cop told him next. He told him that he didn't care who his father was because this was his mistake and his desicion and he couldn't keep hiding behind his father his entire life. He told him that it didn't matter how rich, or successful, or how popular he was because if you stripped all that away all he was was just another stepping stone on an unending road....to debt, to loss, to shame. Kato's eyes grew wide and glassy as if he had just opened them for the first time and he was horrified by what he saw. He was still and didn't say a word as the cop led him to the back of the car. My tears of guilt were falling and just then Kato glanced over at the bush where he knew I was at the whole time and mouthed something to me....."I am nothing". And the car drove off. I burst out of the bushes and let out the hysterical sobs that I fought to hold back. I colapsed onto the cold, December groud and let my tears fall rapidly down my cheek bones."

Riku took a deep sigh and stared directly into Kairi's eyes.

"Kairi.....I can't even describe how awful I felt. There are no words. How can anyone describe such a stinging guilt that makes you wish you would die one thousand deaths?"

"You don't have to describe it....." Kairi said as she choked back her tears. Riku stopped staring into her eyes and gazed back at the ground. She wanted him to be looking into her eyes again.

"Well......it was there on that road with by brother's abandoned truck beside me.....the first time. I got inside his truck and opened the glove compartment where he kept his knife. I closed my eyes and drew my first line on my virgin pale skin. I let out tears of guilt and tiny gasps of pain as I continued to cut more lines, loner and deeper, into my arms. And the more lines I drew, the more hopeful I became that one day my brother would forgive me....."

There was a dead and sad silence in the air as Riku bent his head down....as if in defeat, and Kairi's sobs filled the air like black ribbons in a misty wind. They stayed like this for a while.....their knees pressed against eachother through the glass as they sat Indian-style. Riku didn't make a sound as he slowly leaned his forehead against the glass with his head still facing the ground. Kairi, still crying, followed Riku's actions soon after. With their foreheads pressed against eachother, Kairi weeped with her head also to the ground as Riku's breath grew harder and harder with each passing second. Kairi then lifted her head from the ground and stared directly at Riku through her eyes which were still producing tears. Minutes passed with Kairi crying and staring at Riku with his head still down. Slowly, he lifted his head to where their foreheads and noses were touching through the glass. Kairi closed her eyes and cried harder at this. Tears finally fell from Riku's eyes as well but the whole time he never took his eys off Kairi.

"Please don't close your eyes....." he said, "Your eyes are so beautiful."

Kairi stopped crying and opened her eyes. She tried to control her stuttering breath as she and Riku stared deeply into eachother's empty eyes with their foreheads and noses pressing together. So close, so silent, so sad. Then, as if they had rehearsed it all before, they closed their eyes at the same time and pressed their lips together through the warm glass. They stayed with their lips pressed togther for a moment that seemed to last for eternity, and for that moment.....they were both happy. When their lips parted they stayed with their forheads together and their eyes locked onto eachother as they pressed their palms into eachother.

And that was the first time.....


	6. Glass

Chp 6: Glass

Disclaimer: I don't own KH or "The Calendar Hung Itself" by Bright Eyes. By the way, I HIGHLY recommend downloading the songs featured in this story. Except for the Smile Empty Soul song....that was mainly just a good opening for the story. Bright Eyes and Brand New kick Smile Empty Soul's ass. And just a head's up.....things Riku talks about in this chapter get a bit dirty so brace yourself. Hey....just for fun here's a poll question for everybody....Which story Riku told is an exaggerated version of something that has happened in my own life?

* * *

Cheering. Cheering. Cheering. Everyone so happy.

At the basketball game that night everyone was cheering, and shouting, and jumping out of their bleacher seats. They jeered at the other team and booed the refs whenever they made bad calls. Kairi sat with the cheerleaders as they rustled their pom-poms and did their cheers. Whenever their was a time-out they would get in the middle of the gym and do a cheer or a tumble. At games Kairi was usually enthusiastic and cheered the loudest, but tonight she was quiet and isolated. All she could think about was him. His eyes, his lips, his stories, that kiss. Was it even a real kiss?

"Kairi? KAIRI!" Aerith, captain of the cheerleaders, screamed. Kairi snapped her head up.

"Huh?"

"KAIRI! SNAP OUT OF IT! IT'S YOUR TURN!" It was a time-out.

"Oh...." Kairi changed her demeanor and ran out into the middle of the gym. Everyone cheered for her.

"GO KAIRI!!"

Watching. Waiting. Judging. Expecting.

Kairi did a round-off, back hand-spring, back-tuck. Everyone went wild.

"LET'S GO BIG BLUE!" She shouted. In the middle of her cheers, she spotted Sora in the crowd. They locked a gaze on each other. He blew her a kiss.

A light inside of her went out.

After the game was over, Kairi waited for Yuffie. It was raining and everyone ran outside to their cars. She pulled the sleeves of her jacket down over her blue and yellow cheerleading uniform. Random people would say things to her but she wouldn't respond. Her mind wasn't in this world anymore. Finally, Yuffie walked up to Kairi, hand-in-hand with Leon. She smiled to she them together. She was always so envious of their relationship.

"Hey Kairi," Leon said.

"Hey....." she responded quietly quietly.

"Yuffie, I'm gonna run outside and bring the truck around." Leon said, "I don't want you to get your uniform wet." He gave her a quick peck on the lipsand ran outside. Yuffie smiled as she watched him run off, then turned her full attention to her friend.

"Kairi what is wrong with you tonight?" Yuffie asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? You were like.....dead, the whole night."

"Oh....."

"Yeah, oh.....So what's wrong?" Kairi breathed deeply.

"Yuffie.....is it considered cheating if you kiss someone but you don't really KISS them?"

oO

"What?" Yuffie asked, very confused. Kairi felt like one million lights were shining on her.

"I....I....It's a long story....I...."

"Kairi!" It was Sora. Her eyes grew wide and she quickly snapped her head in his direction.

"Hey....." she said quietly. He wrapped his arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her strawberry lip gloss coated lips. Yuffie watched her friend with concerned eyes.

"What's wrong with you Kairi?" Sora asked, "You're shaking." Kairi looked into Sora's eyes.

"I...I..." A car horn broke her stuttering.

"Hey Yuffie!" Leon called. She looked at her boyfriend through the open passenger window and mouthed "hang on". She got the feeling that Kairi didn't want to be left alone.

"So Kairi, do you wanna go to the park tonight?" Sora asked. She was shaking more than ever now.

"I....I...." Her heart beat like a ritualistic drum. "I've gotta go...." She said. And then she ran into the rain.

"KAIRI!" Sora called out after her, "DON'T YOU NEED ME TO GIVE YOU A RIDE?" But she couldn't hear him.

"What's wrong with her?" He said to Yuffie. She shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know."

* * *

Kairi smiled at Riku as she sat on the cold ground.

"You're soaking wet," he said with a content smile. And she was. Her uniform and jacket were completely drenched and her hair was wet, messy, and sticking to her face.

"I know....I'm a mess."

"You're beautiful," he said. Butterflies. She smiled warmly at him as she pressed her hand against the glass. He pressed his hand into hers.

"So, you're a cheerleader?" Kairi nodded.

"Don't laugh....."

"I won't. I bet you're very good at it." She smiled at him, glad her wasn't judging her.

"Tell me the rest of your story." Riku stared deep into her eyes.

"I don't want to upset you," he said. "I wouldn't dare turn that beautiful smile into a frown."

"Please Riku," she pleaded, "I WANT you tell me." Riku sighed.

"Well.....if it's what you want...." Riku breathed in and out deeply and once again, began his sad story.

"The last few months I've been living with this couple.....that part of the song told a story about the time that I was declared clinically insane. At that time I was living with one of those rare couples who are truly in love......who never get divorced and whose love is always strong and will never ever die. That is a rare thing nowadays isn't it? Hell, they were the ONLY couple I knew that was like that.....Rachel and Darien. Judging by the pshyco, angry, heartbreak that is my life you'd think I'd be blind with rage by this couple but I really wasn't I was truly happy for them. I was glad that someone actually recieved the love that was injected into our minds when we were little. I was glad to know that there was at least ONE couple who wouldn't be dissapointed. Plus, at that time I was crazy in love with this one infamous, back-stabbing, slut named Ashley. At that time, I really did love Ashley. All other girls I had been with were nothing compared to her. You really wouldn't have expected her to be like she was if you first looked at her. She looked like an angel. She had long, natural blonde hair and blue eyes that were bright enough to burn paper. She also had a body like a goddess and could cum for like fifteen seconds straight but that was beside the point....Anyway, I was as in love with her as I could get. Everytime I saw her or was around her I felt so happy....almost unworthy. I thought I wasn't good enough for her.....that I was SO lucky to have her. I have cheated on girls in past, but I never even TALKED to other girls when I was with Ashley. I was with her longer than I was with any other girl. We were together for about a year and a half. I gave her my whole heart. I was completely hers. I was whipped. And of course, it all came crashing down like raining bricks. I remember exactly everything that happened. Are you ready for this?"

"Yes...."

"It was on a Saturday night.....We went to a party together. It was your typical party.....people smoking, drinking, grinding, hooking up. I never left Ashley's sight. I had my arm around her waist and I never took it off. She was mine. No one could have her. We were there for about and hour when Ashley turned to me and said that she had to go to the bathroom. She gave me a kiss and left. She was such a good kisser. While she was gone I grabbed a beer and hung out for a while. I drank three beers, smoked five cigarettes, and even got a bottle of vodka out of the parental stash. She still hadn't come back. I went around asking everybody if they had seen her with the bottle of vodka at my side. Everything started to spin with every swig of the bottle I took. I started to open doors. I must've walked in on about seven people that night. "What the fuck are you doing? Get out perv!" I didn't give a fuck. I was completely hell-bent on finding her. And I found her all right. After about five minutes of stumbling around on the second floor. I saw some guys walk out of a room giving each other high-fives with looks of triumph on thier face. One of them laughed as he pulled a pink bra out of his pocket. I went inside the room and there were about three half-naked girls either getting fingered or giving head. They all looked at me and giggled. And it's then when Ashley's head poked out form under the covers of the bed, followed by the head of another guy. She looked directly at me and giggled. "WHAT THE FUCK?" I shouted. "Oh baby I told you I'd be right back". She then proceeded to tell me that she had sex with every boy in that room. I didn't even know what to do or say. I couldn't believe it. Everyone laughed at me but I couldn't even hear them....I was too drunk, too stunned to care. She then lite a cigarette, inahled, smiled at me, and blew the smoke into the air. "So do I really have to give you my Riku-you-were-getting-old speech or would you rather spare yourself and just leave?". Everyone giggled. And that is when I exploded. "YOU FUCKING SLUT!" I shouted. I stomped over to the bed and drug the guy who was in it out. I threw him up against a book case, and started beating him across the head with War and Peace. After he passed out everyone started to run out of the room, sheilding their naked bodies with peices of clothing. A deep fear came across Ashley's eyes and I walked towards the bed. She started to cower. I WANTED to hit her. I wanted nothing more than to scar that beautiful devil-in-disguise face into a bloody pulp. Instead I told her to go rot and die in her own pile of STDs and then I left."

"Oh man....." Kairi couldn't believe what she had just heard. How could anyone do that to Riku. After all he'd been through....He was so beautiful.....How?

"Yeah, well after I walked out of the room I stumbled around the party aimlessly. I was drunk. But not drunk enough. I could still feel the pain. I could still make out the faces in the crowds. It was then when I decided that tonight I would be a vampire....just like Ashley. I searched for my prey. It wouldn't be hard. I was hott. I could have anybody I wanted. I walked around for a while and then I found her. Her name was Kadence. She had silky brown hair that came to her shoulders and wide blue-grey eyes. I knew that she liked me ever since I first came to that school. I could feel the butterflies flying in her stomach with every step towards her I took. It was night when I would engage in conversation with her and then take her to a room and lie her down on a bed where she would become the lamb to my slaughter. That was the night where I would take off her bra and feel her nipples grow hard as I squeezed her soft, milky breasts. The night where I would slide her panties to her knees and finger as I listened to her soft whimpers. She knew I was drunk. She could taste it on my lips, but she let me fuck her anyway. And fuck her I did....and then I left the party with the blood of my victim flowing through my veins."

Kairi's eyes were wide and awkward at listening to that story. It felt strange listening to Riku talk about sex like this. She knew he had lots of it but something about hearing him talk about it made her feel uneasy.

"Was she a virgin?"

"Yes," he said without shame. Kairi close her eyes and whinced.

"Wow.....that's bad."

"No shit...."

"So what happened after that?"

"Fucking Kadence made the pain go away....for the most part. But in place of all the sadness that I should've been feeling, I had anger and rage in abundance. With every step I took toward my house I grew more and more violent. By the time I reached the front door I was completely consumed. It was about two in the morning. I opened the door and slammed it so hard behind me that the pictures hanging on the wall shook. Rachel and Darien ran downstairs. "RIKU WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THE TIME IS?" Darien shouted. "Honey, don't yell at him." Rachel said. He stopped yelling. "Riku you know your curfew is midnight." I didn't say anything to her. I stared at Rachel and Darien with eyes like knives pointed at a child's throat. "Honey have you been drinking?" Rachel asked. She took a step towards me. "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" I yelled. "HEY! Don't talk to her like that!" Darien yelled. And that is when I snapped. I went completely crazy. Everything that had been pent up inside of me was released at that moment. I started breaking all their framed pictures. I smashed their glass cabinet. I even broke their TV. The whole time screaming. "WHY THE FUCK DO YOU GET TO LIVE LIKE THIS? WHY ARE Y'ALL SO GOD-DAMN PERFECT? WHY SHOULD YOU FUCKERS GET EVERYTHING THAT WAS PROMISED TO YOU AND I GET NOTHING! NOTHING!" Rachel started to cry. Darien was chasing me but he couldn't get near me because whenever he did I threw something at him....whether it be a glass, a chair, or a knife. And then, still in a fit of rage, I ran out of their house and ran away from everything. From everyone. I ran away from all the people that had let me down, who never gave me a chance, all those I had loved and never loved."

"Wow...." Kairi was completely amazed. His life was an unbelieveable story. It was hard to believe that a person could be blessed with such misfourtune as Riku had.

"Do wanna hear the song I wrote for Ashley?"

"Sure....." Kairi was glad he'd offered to play her something. She'd only heard that one song and was blown away by his ability to write, and sing, and play. Riku got his guitar.

"Ok.....this is the song that I trapped the memory of that whore in.....You ready?"

"Yes....." Kairi replied with a smile. He smiled at her, and with that, he started to play a fast-paced rhythm on his acoustic guitar. He opened his mouth and sang.

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning

When you start to raise your head?

And does he sing to you incessantly

Through the place between your bed and wall?

Does he walk around all day at school

With his feet inside you shoes

Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you

Or does he know that place below your neck is your favorite to be touched

And does he cry through brokwn sentences

Like "I love you far too much"

Does he lay awake listening to your breath?

Worry you smoke to many cigarettes?

Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?

For every speck of of tile, there's 1,000 more

You won't ever see

But must hold inside yourself eternally

And I drug your ghost across the country

And we plotted out my death

In every city, memories would whisper

"Here is where you rest"

I was determined in Chicago, but I dug my teeth into my knees

And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine"

And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her

She had eyes bright eboug to burn me

They reminded me of yours

And in a story told she was a little girl

In a red-rouge, sun-bruised field

And there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was concealed

And it rose like thunder, clapped under our heads

And it stretched for centuries, to a diary's entry where I wrote

"You make me happy when skies are grey"

"You make me happy when skies are grey and grey and grey"

Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest

With hands stretched towards a calander hanging itself

But I will not weep for those dying days

For all the ones that left, there's a few that stayed

And they found me here and pulled me from the grass

Where I was layed

Riku stared directly into Kairi's eyes when he was done playing. That song left her speechless. It was so beautiful and cried out in desperate insanity. The way Riku wrote and played.....it's like you could almost feel his pain. This was yet another time when she wanted more than anything to break inside the glass and hug him, kiss him, tell him everything is going to be all right. But everything wasn't going to be all right. How could everything be all right? Kairi dropped her head. Riku sighed and placed his fingertips on the glass where her face hung towards the ground.

"I told you I didn't want to upset you......" Kairi held her head back up and placed her fingertips where Riku's were.

"No....please I want to hear the rest......Please." Riku sighed.

"Well the rest of the song is just kind of a blur of my thoughts and feelings after I ran away form Rachel and Darien's. That's when I moved in with Daniel and when I was declared socialibly unhealthy and cops were trying to find me. Daniel and I lived a very suttle existense so it took them a while.....Sometimes when me and Daniel were really strapped for cash I would go down to the train station and play my guitar.....people were really rich and generous so I got a good bit of money. That train station really screwed me up.....I remember always watching the same people come and go everyday.....everyone going to and coming from the same place they had before. I remember silently mocking them. "They don't realize how sad their life truly is. Everyday is the same routine. They've completely lost themselves." But soon, I came to realize that I was just as bad as them. I didn't know who I was anymore. My soul was trap in scattered peices of songs I had sung, poems I had written, and pictures I drew. I realized that I was nothing. That I was no better than the corporate ass-holes that ruin the lives of innocent people...."Look at yourself" I thought. "Bringing random girl home every night. Losing their number. Forgetting their face. Smoking. Drinking. Trying to get a cheap feel." I had become my own worst enemy just as Daniel was his. When I realized all of this, that was around the time that Daniel ran away and never came back. The news was all over the story like he was only worth something since he was dead. The cops figured out I was living with him and took me to one of those hardcore foster homes with therapy and shit....It didn't work. I couldn't be saved. I always ran off from that hell-hole but always came back simply because I had nowhere else to go. Whenever I ran off I would go to this church.....You're safe in a church. No one will try and find you there. I would lie down in the pews and sleep, think, listen to the choir practice, watch people pray. I remember one day I stared directly up at Christ hanging up on the cross. "I hate you. Where are you? Why won't you listen to me? Is my voice drowned out by those who are more worthy than me? Why did you do this to me?" I cried in the chapel that day. When I was done, I turned around and walked slowly out of the church......my broken heart and absent God making every step I took heavy and painful......and that was the day I was sent to Safe House."

Kairi tried not to cry.....she really did. But she just couldn't help it. She felt so guilty.

"Ok Riku....." she said with tears streaming down her face, "I hate myself. Why do I get to be so lucky? I wish we could switch lives....."

"I wouldn't want you to have my life Kairi," he said with tears in his eyes.

"Riku...." She pressed her hands hard against the glass. He pressed his back into hers. Kairi cried harder with each passing second. She beat her fists on the glass agressively.

"I HATE THIS GOD DAMN GLASS!! I HATE IT! HATE IT! HATE IT!" She screamed, her hands pounding and grwoing red the whole time.

"Kairi...." Riku cried. Kairi stopped pounding and bent her head down in defeat and started sobbing. This made Riku start to sob as well.

"I didn't want to upset you....."

"Oh Riku....." They both pressed their lips against each other through the glass. They stayed with their lips together longer this time.....their tears and breath fogging up the clear wall between them.

"I love you Riku."

"I love you Kairi."


	7. Broken Hearts Left Behind

**Chp 7: Broken Hearts Left Behind**

* * *

A/N: It's funny…..I wrote this story and something happened to me that is exactly like something that would happen to Riku in this story. Anyway, I might have to change the rating of this story…..Definitely later if not right now.

* * *

Kairi was glad she took keyboarding right now. There is always the typical typing out of pointless documents, but if you got done with your work early then you were free to get on the internet or listen to music. A few girls talked in the back of the class room. A boy in an Underoath t-shirt played solitaire with his blaring headphones over his head. People were crowded around a girl in pigtails as they watched Homestar Runner t-shirt on her computer. Kairi scrolled around people's Live Journal's as her thoughts were soaking in thoughts of Riku. She could replay everything in her head perfectly. Every word. Every kiss. Every glance. Every bat of an eyelash or flick of the hand. This particular day Kairi was lost in thought about Riku and Daniel. She thought of how awful it must be to wake up one day and find out your best friend is dead. And the make things worse, the media dared to rear its ugly head into the story. Kairi could see it all now. The camera's flashing. The greedy, check-holding, attention-seeking faces digging in Riku's sad face asking questions. Barging. Prying. Trying to get that 5th shot. It made Kairi's nails dig into the table her palms rested upon just thinking about it.

"Son of a bitches….." she said under her breath as her hands balled into fists of rage. She started to tremble slightly but just then a thought struck her. She lifted her hands and typed in the phrases on the search engine.

Headlines

Destiny Islands

Teenager Found Dead

Obituaries

Daniel

Several pages full of headlines showed up on the computer screen, some more relevant than the ones before it. Some were just random, unimportant events that happened recently in Destiny Islands. Some were about teenage suicide. Some were dirty sites begging curious teenagers and sick older men to watch the video of Sarah and her boyfriend Daniel fucking in a dimly lit bedroom. But her eyes eventually wandered on exactly what she was looking for. "Teenager Found Dead in Alley". She clicked on the link and read the cruel article.

Today a young teenager was found dead in an alley behind a tattoo parlor in South Side. The young man was identified as Daniel Whiteman, 16, son of Monty Whiteman, a surgeon at Destiny Islands Hospital. An autopsy was performed and his death was determined to be suicide by several forms of tranquilizers and an overdose of ecstasy. Daniel had run away from home three months before his death and was living with a friend. There home was 100 miles away from where he was found dead. Both his friend and Daniel's father refused to comment.

A black and white picture of Daniel's hauntingly beautiful face hung above the distant article. Kairi read it over and over again. Absorbing the words that knew absolutely nothing. Gazing at his picture deeply. She completely zoned out. Everything around her just seemed to disappear. But this separate world didn't last long. It was soon caught off by a sharp, high-pitched scream like nails running slowly down a chalkboard.

Books crashed onto the floor.

Everyone in the computer room turned around. There she was. Pale-faced and trembling. Her piercing blue eyes traced in black were open wide and still. It was Mandy.

Dye your hair black and buy some new vans.

She didn't have red streaks in her hair anymore. They were blue now and her hair was in low ponytails. She wore a short black shirt and a blue fishnet top with a black tank top underneath it. She had black tights with white dots on and big black knee-length boots.

Everyone was laughing at her but she still remained perfectly still. Kairi looked her in the eyes and mouthed 'What's wrong?' Tears were starting to grow in her eyes now. She kept opening her mouth like she was about to say something but it always came to a trembling close. Kairi realized she was looking at her computer screen. Kairi looked back at Daniel's obituary and then back at Mandy.

"What's wrong with the freak?" One of the guys shouted out. Everyone snickered. Mandy buried her face in her hands and ran out of the room.

"Mr. Gravel! See me after class!" The teacher yelled right before she walked out of the class after Mandy. Kairi whipped her head around at the boy who was still laughing and getting high-fives from his little piss-ass jock friends.

"Billy!" Kairi yelled at him, "Shut the hell up. You got caught jerking off to a tea bagging site in the fucking library, loser!"

Everyone cracked up and Billy turned red and shut up. Kairi turned her chair around and looked back at Daniel's article.

"Was this really why she was crying?"

* * *

Kairi skipped lunch that period. Mandy was in her lunch shift and she knew that almost everyday the druggie kids would go to the side of the school right outside the art room and smoke. Kairi stumbled in her purple heels trying to find them. It became not so hard as she began to just follow her nose. The strong smell of pot and trail of cigarette butts soon led her to them. Leon, who was in the middle of everybody, stumbled over to her. Kairi rolled her eyes. His eyes were red and glazed and reeked of twenty dollar weed that he probably got from the substitute English teacher. 

"Hey Kai," he said softly.

"I hate it when you're stoned. Don't talk to me."

"What?"

"It's like talking to three year old."

"……What?" Kairi slapped her hand on her forehead and groaned.

"I'm looking for Mandy."

"Mandy?"

"Yes Leon…..Mandy."

"Oh, right. She's right over there." He said as he pointed.

"Leon, that would be the completely baron football field."

"Oh…..whoops."

"Leon, go contemplate your life. I'll find her myself." She didn't even wait for what stupid and detached statement he would say in response to that. She walked away from him and toward the kids with eyeliner and cigarettes in their mouth. Sure enough she was standing right there. She took a deep breath, tugged onto her white halter dress, and walked slowly over to her. The two boys Mandy was standing in between both whispered something to her and each other followed by snickers. Mandy seemed not to care what they were saying as she straightened her posture and kept her eyes locked on Kairi. This made her not so intimidated anymore. Kairi cleared her throat and walked proudly towards Mandy and her friends. The closer she got the more the two boys snickered and talked. Kairi stopped a few feet in front of the three friends. They all stared blankly at her through their clouds of smoke.

"Can I talk to you?" Kairi asked her. At first Mandy just looked at her but then she backed off of the wall and began to walk towards her.

"What the hell Mandy? Are you now succumbing to the princess paying a little charity trip to the group home kids?" One of the guys said as the other snickered. Mandy turned around sharply, took one last drag of her cigarette, and flicked it at the boy who made the comment.

"Shut the fuck up Travis!" she growled.

"Bitch!" he yelled back at her. She flicked him off and walked away with Kairi. They walked towards the courtyard.

"So…..he seems…..nice," Kairi said.

"Travis?" She rolled her eyes, "Whatever, I don't really care. I'm not his bitch or anything. We've fucked like twenty times and he can score me some really good Ex. That's pretty much that." They sat down on a bench.

"So what do I owe the surprise of you coming up to the junkie kids?" Mandy said as she tossed one of her pigtails behind her back.

"I just wanted to see if you were ok." Mandy got quiet and her eyes lingered to the floor.

"Why were you crying?" She still said nothing. Kairi could see Mandy starting to shake. There's no need to beat around the bush right?

"Mandy, do you know who Daniel Whiteman is?" After Kairi asked this she buried her face in her hands. She shook like she was on drugs. When she lifted her head tears streaked down her face.

"Why the fuck do you want to know?" she sobbed.

"I've heard my friend Riku talk about him." Mandy stopped crying and looked Kairi straight in the eye.

"Riku?" Kairi's heart skipped a beat

"Oh my gosh you know who Riku is?" she asked as she took Mandy's hand.

"Riku is still alive!"

"How the hell do you know who Riku is?"

"Because I knew Daniel…." She started to shake again, "Oh my god I knew Daniel……" She started to cry. Kairi wondered if this was a story she could handle hearing. As she watched Mandy cry she realized that people like Riku and Daniel are built on their broken hearts. But for every heart break they've suffered, there's a broken heart they've left behind.

"Wait a sec…..you're last name is Whiteman isn't it?" She nodded.

"I'm sure Riku told you about how Daniel's parents hated him….well they adopted me when we were both 7 out of spite of him."

"What?" Kairi said in a disgusted tone.

"Yeah….."

"That's fucking awful!"

"I know….They adopted me and showered me with all the love they neglected to give him. They would flaunt their artificial love for me in front of him. They bought me anything I wanted while making Daniel get a job. It destroyed him. You know how some people say that a boy crying is one of the saddest things you can see? Imagine seeing Daniel…..the most beautiful boy in the world…..crying nonstop. Every night having to listen to him cry through your wall, every night for eight years. It broke my heart listening to him cry like that. I wanted to comfort him so much. I wanted to take him in my arms and run my fingertips through his hair. I wanted to kiss the lips of this boy I called brother and let him know everything was all right."

"Jesus…." Kairi felt kind of strange listening to this. She was adopted but that was still frowned upon by people. But if she loved him then she wouldn't really care if it was frowned upon would she?

"One night when we were 15 Daniel and our parent's got into this big-ass fight. Daniel painted this picture that his art teacher insisted upon hanging in a museum. He asked our parents if they would come to the opening of the gallery his painting would be displayed in. They told him they couldn't, they had plans. It was awful. Daniel did the one thing he promised he would never do….he cried in front of our parents. He cried and screamed and asked why didn't they support him, why didn't they encourage him, why didn't they love him. I sat in my bed listening to the whole thing crying. I felt so helpless. I could hear when our father hit him. I could hear when Daniel rip the lamp out of its socket and throw it up against the wall. Dad grabbed him by the arm, drug him upstairs, then threw him into his room. He screamed at him to not make a peep and that he didn't want to see his god damn face for the rest of the night. He then swung the door open to my room and told me not to go in his fucking room."

Kairi was at a loss for words. She knew that she could try as hard as she could but she couldn't even begin to imagine how awful it must have bed to hear your parents scream such hateful things at your own brother. How alone it must have made you feel. The overwhelming feeling of shame. The constant wish that it was you and not him.

"I went into Daniel's room around midnight. He was still awake and crying. Trembling. He had a gash on his cheek. I had never seen anything more heart breaking in my life. I sat down beside him on his bed. He didn't even acknowledge my presence. He just continued to cry and hold a blood stained towel to his arm. Seeing this made me want to cry. I didn't know what to do. I would have slit the throats of one thousand babies just to see him smile right then."

Kairi was very caught off guard by this statement. She gave Mandy a horrified look, expecting her to say she was exaggerating, but the look in Mandy's eyes told that his was no exaggeration.

"I sat there helplessly. Crying. Having no clue what to do. He still hadn't acknowledged me nor said a word to me. And it was right then when I did the only thing I felt I could do…..I scooted closer to him and pulled the towel away from his arm, exposing his fresh, deep cut marks probably done by the tip of his protractor. He then made his first glance at me. I kissed the scars on his arm over and over again, staining my lips in blood. I ran my fingers up his chest and then kissed his neck. He started breathing heavily and I could feel him shaking. And then I lifted my head from his neck and we slowly locked our trembling lips together. All he did was kiss me, he kept his hands by his side. But then I reached for his hand and gently guided it up my shirt. He squeezed my breasts harder and harder and he kept kissing me more and more aggressively until he eventually had me pinned down on his bed. He took off my shirt and then it all fell out from there….."

Kairi stared wide-eyed at her.

"So ya'll had sex?" she asked. Many nodded.

"And if you think that's bad then what do you think is the absolute worst possible thing that could happen?"

Kairi froze up and grew white in horror.

"No….."

"Yes….The door burst open as we lied unclothed in each other's arms to reveal my father standing there, staring, blind and red with rage. He let out a terrifying scream and charged after us. We scampered like kitchen mice being chased with a knife, helplessly gathering our clothes and trying to dodge dad's furious lunges at us. We ran out of his room and into opposite directions. It was then when Daniel finally squirmed into his clothes and ran out the door. He ran away that day and never looked back. I, however, didn't have that luxury, I was caught and beat. The next day I was sent to live in the group home I live in now."

"Mandy…..I'm so sorry," Kairi said as she took her hand. Mandy glanced down at Kairi's hand holding hers. Normally, Mandy would freak out and scream about how she didn't need her sympathy but this time she just continued talking."

"Oh fear not yet, because I did see Daniel again. I had no clue where Daniel was but he found out where I lived and he would write me letters almost every day. They would all say how sorry he was and how much he loved me and how much he missed seeing my beautiful face. They had no return address on them so I couldn't write him back but he still continued to send me these letters for months. In one letter he finally told me where he lived and so I snuck out one night and went to find him. I'll never forget how happy I was to see his gorgeous face when he opened the door and how happy I was and the look of happiness that I had never seen come across his face. It was one of the best nights of my life. I met Riku who at the time was fucking some emo chick with brown and white hair, and all night we stayed up, got drunk, smoke pot, made love it was the fucking life. From that night on he would still continue to write me letters and I would sneak out every chance I got to come see him. I didn't expect Daniel to be monogamous with me. I knew of all the girls that came to Riku and Daniel's apartment. Daniel had sort of a conquest book that he let me read with detailed description of every girl he had and an exact documentation of what they did while having sex. I knew that what Daniel and I had was special, that I wasn't some random one-night-stand girl. I knew he only kept this book to help himself build self-esteem that my parents burned to ashes, but still it broke my heart to read it. It broke my heart to know of every single girl he would lie down and know every single move they made together. One night, I eventually got mad at him. I completely lost it on him. I screamed at him. I asked how dare he show me those things. He pleaded with me and told me it was the only thing keeping himself together, but still I yelled at him and then stormed out of the house, never looking back once. And that Kairi, was the last time I saw Daniel Whitman, a week later I found that exact article that you read in keyboarding."

Kairi was shocked. She felt horrible. Insensitive. Like a total bitch for ever pulling that up.

"Oh Mandy I'm so sorry….." She nodded and wiped the tears from her pale cheeks.

"Please….Don't say anything. Please…..let me just tell you things about Riku."

Kairi opened her mouth to protest but she decided it would probably be best to respect Mandy's wishes.

"Well Riku and Daniel were very much alike. They had both suffered through much heartbreak and at that time they were trying anything to make them feel alive. They ran through drugs, girls, everything. Riku would always try and heal the deep wounds our parents left on Daniel's soul but of course it would never work…..But I think you already know this, so instead I'll tell you something you probably want to know. Riku probably told you all about himself and what he's been through but I knew he barely even tipped the scale of the PEOPLE he's been through."

Kairi sighed.

"Yeah you're right."

"Well it might interest you to know that I know Jesses and Kadence."

The questions spilled out like water out of a faucet.

"You do! Oh my gosh how are they? What happened to Jesses? Oh man what happened to poor Kadence? What…"

"Damn! Slow down girl! Well first I'll tell you about Jesse. Did Riku tell you that that Tyndell bitch broke up with him because she thought Riku was cheating on her with Jesse?"

"Yes…."

"Well I bet Riku didn't tell you that he DID in fact cheat on her with Jesse."

Kairi was shocked.

"What?"

"All the fucking time…."

Kairi couldn't help but let the thoughts of Jesse painfully listening to Riku nag incessantly about Tyndell swarm over and over again in her head. And how he probably told Jesse that he loved her as he lied her down to his sacrifice. And how this probably made it even more painful for Jesse to listen to Riku. And the utter hypocritical slap Jesse must have felt when Riku dared to tell her that it was all her fault. It made everything so much worse than she cared to imagine.

"He tore her heart out through and through. The whole time he was messing around with her he promised that he loved her, and he promised that he'd be her one day, and she just kept waiting and waiting and hoping he would come through her someday but he never did…..ever."

Kairi grew hot in rage. She grew angry at Riku. How could he do that? How could he fucking to that to someone he dared to call his best friend?

"Oh man and Kadence….." Mandy continued like it was nothing, "Where do I even START? Well I'm sure he told you about how he fucked her as part of his whole 'emotional vampire' deal against Ashley. Well boy did that plane crash into the mountain….After he ran off Kadence freaked out. She was a very fragile girl already but that just pushed her over the edge. She thought it was something she did to make him leave. She was a very beautiful girl but after what Riku did to her, what little self-esteem she had was totally vanquished. She started hiding her gorgeous natural face behind tons of make-up and she ate less and less until eventually she became anorexic. One night she took a Lortab and was sent to the hospital. I'm really not sure what happened to her….."

Kairi sat still, staring straight ahead of her in complete awe and disgust at the horrible ruin Riku had left these girls in. It was too much too handle. It was too horrible to ignore. Kairi looked at Mandy and gave her a hug.

"Thank you Mandy….."

And with that Kairi walked away from her. As she walked away she realized that people like Daniel and Riku are built upon the crippling remains of their broken heart, but for every heartbreak they suffered, there another heartbreak in its place that someone else was suffering. And their heartbreak would effect another person and then another person until an entire chain built on sadness was formed. Yes, Riku and Daniel were two very scarred individuals, but it was clear to see from the broken hearts they left behind, that they were no better than the ones who had hurt them.


	8. Not This Time

**Chp 8: Not This Time**

A/N: Wow, yes I know it has been a long time but a bunch of drama happened and I had all this prom shit to focus on and then my computer got a virus and it was shit. But you know what? Every time this story gets delayed I go through all these things that help me write the story even better. A lot of things in this story are exaggerated versions of things myself and people I know go through. So I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint you.

* * *

The words Mandy spoke still roamed through Kairi's mind as Riku sat on the ground of his cage and once again told his stories to her. But she wouldn't listen. Not this time. Whatever words he said just rolled off Riku's seductive tongue and when they reached the air Kairi would watch them disintegrate into visions of the ruin Jesse and Kadence's lives must be.

_You think you're SO perfect. You think you're this wounded little angel that fucking EVERYBODY was out to get._

Kairi couldn't stand listening to him. She couldn't stand looking at him. She couldn't stand being in he same room as him. She wanted to break through the glass but this time as to strangle him. She thought of the words Jesse wrote in her letter.

Have another drink and drive yourself home

I hope there's ice on all the roads

And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt

And again when your head goes through the windshield

_Fucking right_

She felt like an idiot for ever feeling sorry for him for receiving such a letter.

_You deserved it. You deserved every fucking but of it._

Tears of rage started to form in her eyes. Her nails dug deeper into her soft palms with each sap-filled word Riku spoke. And with every spite-ridden second she wasted looking at him, it made her want to kill him even more. Her hate was like a perfume in the air, and Riku, soon caught onto its scent.

"Kairi what's wrong?" he asked. Kairi said nothing and just gave him a stare that could cut through cement. It frightened him. He wasn't used to this kind of reaction from Kairi. Her eyes were usually sympathetic and full of love.

"Kairi tell me…." Still nothing. Her silence was like a knife against his throat. It threatened to kill him. Every second she spent boring her hate-filled eyes into his the more he felt like dying.

"Kairi why won't you talk to me?" he asked like a wounded child.

"When do I ever talk to you Riku?" she said slowly and precisely. Her words like poisonous arrows to the Achilles heel.

"What do you mean?" still like a wounded child.

_Don't fucking give me that. Not this time._

"It's always you Riku. Everything is always about you. You and your so sad and pathetic life. That's how it's been and it always will be. That's all you ever fucking talk about!"

Riku was stunned, shocked, exposed in the headlights naked, fumbling for his clothes.

"What?" he asked meekly, his only word in defense.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP RIKU! You don't get to talk anymore! You will sit there and listen to every damn thing I have to say!"

Everyone in their cages awoke from their slumber, physical or mental, and watched with wide eyes at what was going on.

"I am so sick of you and this wounded puppy facade! 'Oh Kairi! Listen to my stories! Read my pathetic poetry! Love me! Feel sorry for me! Boo hoo hoo!'," she mocked. Everyone's eyes looked at her in disbelief.

"I've fucking had it!"

"But Kairi…."

"SHUT UP!" she screamed loud enough to raise demons out of Hell as she kicked his cage, causing a girl in pigtails two cells down to curl into a ball and cry. But Kairi didn't care.

"You think you're the fucking little victim in life….the underdog, the protagonist, the kid everyone picks on, FUCK THAT! That couldn't be further from the truth! You are the villain Riku! The fucking villain! The antagonist, the bully, the murder, the sinner with the angel eyes…."

"Kairi…." he started to sob. She got in his face through the glass.

"WHAT PART OF SHUT UP DON'T YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND!" A boy in a nearby cell with short brown hair snickered. She whipped her head around.

"STAY THE FUCK OUT OF IT!" The first thing she said to anybody in Safe House besides Riku.

"You're a liar Riku," she continued yelling, "a damn liar! You don't tell the world how it is. You tell it how you want to see it! WELL IT'S NOT REALITY DAMN IT!" Now Riku started to get mad.

"KAIRI WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?"

"YOU'RE NOT THE VICTIM RIKU! YOU'RE THE RUINER! THE GOD DAMN RUINER! Do you think I don't know what I'm talking about? What about Jesse, Riku? What about Kadence? Why don't you ever write stories of THEIR tragedies, huh?" Riku frowned.

"You totally fucked their lives up! You used them for trash and then you made YOU look like the good guy? BULL SHIT! I talked to Mandy. I…."

"You talked to Mandy?" he questioned with exclamation.

"DON'T CHANGE THE DAMN SUBJECT!" She screamed, "You lied to me Riku! You fucking lied! You DID cheat on Tyndell with Jesse! Forgot to mention THAT little detail now didn't we? You built her hopes up like a Lego statue. I bet you made her believe that you loved her. AND YOU EVEN TOLD HER IT WAS ALL HER FAULT! Don't think I've forgotten that! You fucking monster! You DESERVED that letter! You deserved much worse!"

"Kairi, I…." but she just continued yelling like he wasn't even there.

"AND KADENCE? Oh my God, Kadence. What the fuck was that? You KNEW she loved you. You KNEW all she wanted was to hold you. And you took advantage of her in order to keep your pride! Is that how it is Riku? Fuck a girl and it's one more shred of dignity for your own damn self? You raped her of her purity and innocence just so you could go on, not even caring about what happened to her! You selfish prick!" Riku was at a loss.

"Kairi…."

"DO YOU DO THIS ALL THE TIME RIKU? Of course you do! I'm the same damn story as all the other faceless girls you fucked! You lure them into your lair and slowly pull them into your grasp with these stories you tell….these false and selfish stories. Then you have your way with them and let them loose like a ladybug from your clasped palms. How many girls were there Riku? Do you even know? Do you even care? HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU USED UP IN HOPES OF MAKING YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF?"

"Kairi…." He spoke up.

"ANSWER ME DAMN IT!"

"Kairi you're…."

"You know what? Fuck this! I don't even care! I won't waste another second of my life listening to you, looking at you, feeling sorry for you. You can go kill yourself for all I care!" That was it. Riku wasn't going to try and make things better anymore. It all crashed from right there.

"FUCK YOU KAIRI! Go! See if I fucking care! Don't let the door hit you in your boney ass on the way out!"

"Don't you swear at me you selfish, weepy emo bitch!"

"Go fuck yourself prep!"

"Oh that's real original. Did you think of that yourself?"

"FUCK YOU!" Riku screamed. Kairi smoothed out her skirt and got up to leave.

"Fuck this I'm out of here…." She started to walk away, not even the slightest glance at Riku.

"DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK!" Riku called after her.

"FINE!" she screamed back.

"FINE!"

Some of the caged kids snickered, some cried, some stared awkwardly around, some didn't care, but all of them, no matter the reaction, had seen the first real thing they'd seen in a long time. Whispers, tiny sobs, and occasional laughs became the music to Riku and Kairi's harsh farewell as Riku turned his back away from everybody and Kairi tried to keep her head held high…..both pretending they weren't crying.


	9. Lessons for the Closeminded

**Chp 9: Lessons for the Close-minded**

* * *

What now? What shall I do today? How do I forget? Who will I talk to? Regular or decaf? Would you like fries with that?

Life for Kairi went back to normal but didn't at the same time. Her mind saw things differently. Her thoughts were Greek to what went through her mind before Riku. She noticed things now. She analyzed. She looked closer. She re-examnied herself and all those around her. People started to annoy her more and more. High school that she once looked at as everything, the center of the world, started to become a joke. She began to see the cliches, the stereotypes, the labeling, the pathetic people TRYING to be labeled. She became disgusted at the people who she realized were using her to define themselves and stopped talking to them. But it wasn't just Kairi who was being used. People used Mandy to define themselves as an "alt kid" just like people used Kairi to be defined "popular". Everyone, everywhere was using someone. Thriving for that pathetic image...skater, punk, prep, goth, druggie, art freak...It was all too much to live up to. She had seen people put on too much make-up, spend too much money on Steve Maddens, Uggs, DC, Converse, start smoking pot, wearing clothes that look awful on them, trying to draw, trying to write poetry, trying to be at every show on Friday night, trying to get invited to every party, constantly outside Hollister, Abercrombie, Hot Topic. And Kairi knew she wasn't one to say that she wasn't just another extension of the high school cliches...she had every piece of clothing from every mainstream trend from the last five years. Who was she to pretend like SHE wasn't carrying around a five hundred dollar purse? Wearing three hundred dollar shoes? More brand name clothes than the whole lot put together? There was no escape from it. Everyone was doomed to be swallowed by a big black cloud of credit cards and over-priced shoes.

He was the only escape she ever had.

* * *

Yuffie, Leon, and Sora talked and laughed amongst themselves at their lunch table as Kairi pushed the food around on her plate and gazed dully at the packs of people neatly sorted out.

_There's the goth table, there's the skater table, there's the band geeks, there's the jocks...the druggie table is of course not present for they are all smoking out back._

Kairi seemed to be lost somewhere in between the sluts and the pretty boys.

Kairi looked around the lunch room at Aerith, smiling as she collected money for prom tickets from people. It wasn't a big suprise that she was selling these tickets of teenage babylon. Anyone would buy anything from Aerith...whether she was selling her body or HIV infected heroine needles, boys and girls alike would rush to get it. And why wouldn't they? Who could resist Aerith? She was the embodiment of perfection. She was always looking flawless. She never had a bad hair day. She always said the right thing. Aerith may has well been the Jesus of Destiny Island High. She could do no wrong. People worshiped her. But Kairi knew that she also somehow carried a Jesus-like stigma in this high school. Why? Why did these people need an Aeirth? A Kairi? Someone to strive for? It's only four years! Four years and then your gone! What would become of you then? Who in this high school would achieve something great? Slim to none. Who would paint a masterpeice? Probably no one. Who would find fame? Maybe one if they get lucky. Who would find true love? A handful...four or five at least. Everyone else was doomed for a lifetime of settlement and mediocrity. What did high school matter? What did Aerith matter? What did Kairi matter? What did cheerleading, or the prom, or the football team matter? Nothing. It was all going to be over soom anyway.

"I think I'm gonna try out for the gymnastics team next year," Yuffie said, "I'm kinda growing out of cheerleading."

"Yeah well anyone would grow out of you bitches," Leon said. Everyone laughed except for Kairi who remained lost in her mind.

"What about you Kairi?" Sora asked. Kairi snapped out of her rambling thoughts.

"Huh?"

"Are you trying out for cheerleading again next year?" he asked again. There was a few moments of silence before Kairi answered. She shrugged.

"I don't know...I'm kind of getting burnt out on everything. What's the point? We'll all just graduate in a year and a half anyway. What will what we did in high school matter? What will any of this matter?"

There was a few seconds of awkward silence as they all stared at Kairi with wide-eyes. But that silence was soon broken by Leon and Kairi breaking into hysterical laughter. They were bending over and pounding on the lunch table, taking a few breaths once in a while so they could choke out comments like "Wow Kairi you could make some first class shitty poetry out of that!" or "Go sit at the emo kid table!" Kairi just watched them and couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight of them laughing until tears poured out of their dark eyes.

"You two are ass holes," Kairi said with smirk. They laughed even harder. Sora hadn't said aything during this entire ordeal.

"Kairi why do you say that?" he asked. Kairi looked into his eyes.

"What do you mean? Am I not allowed to speak my mind?"

"No...I mean what you said...it's..."

"Stupid?" Leon asked, "Were you about to say that it's stupid?" Sora said nothing.

"Well Sora you saying that her thoughts are stupid is just as ridiculous as Kairi saying those painfully emo thoughts, so let me tell her the REAL answer to her questions..."

Leon took Kairi's hands and looked straight into her eyes.

"Kairi look at me when I say this to you..." She obeyed and lifted her head to stare right back into his eyes.

"Kairi, I can tell you're kind of bummed out today and you're going through the whole 'what's the point?' phase. Everyone does. Well Kairi, you ask what's the point of anything you do in high school but I ask what's the point of being bummed out? What's the point of sulking? When you sulk you're porposely making yourself sad. And why would you want to do that? True, maybe the things we do in high school won't matter ten years from now but you want to know something? Today is not ten years from now. Today is today and you shouldn't be worrying about life in the future. Saying what's the point of high school is saying what is the point of the life you're living right now. You should be worrying about making the life you're living NOW the best and most fun you can."

"Yeah," Yuffie joined in, "you ask what's the point in high school? What's the point in cheerleading? It doesn't matter what the point of high school is because everyone has to go through it, so why not make the best of it? And what's the point of cheerleading? I like it and I'm good at it, and now I'm moving on and trying something more challenging because I can. I'm doing things NOW because you know where we may all be in ten years? Trapped in Suburbia driving Hondas with boring jobs and five kids that wear us down more and more as the days go by. You need to be living your life now because later on we may have no life."

Everything they were saying made perfect sense. Yuffie and Leon always had such a great way of explaining things. They never made her feel stupid. It was becoming clear to her that it was silly to be in this sulky and dull mood.

"So basically Kairi," Leon said, "what's the point of sulking when you could be having fun? What's the point of being sad when you can be happy? What's the point of being mad at something or someone when you can make yourself happier by just accepting it?"

That struck home...majorly. Kairi bent her head down. What's the point of being mad at something or someone when you can make yourself happier by just accepting it?...by just accepting it?"

"I love you Kairi," Yuffie said, "and you'll feel at lot better if you let go of the questions, and reservations, and the 'what's the point' attitude and just do whatever makes YOU happy." Kairi lifted her head and smiled at her friend. Yuffie smiled back. It was a smile that could've made the sun want to come out on a cloudy day.

"And that's a lesson for the close-minded."

* * *

Kairi lied on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Clutching her pillows and thinking about everything Yuffie and Leon told her. They had such a wonderful way of giving her advice. Most people would've just told her she was stupid and left it at that, but their advice and thoughts had a way of clearing space even in the most narrow of minds. They were both so smart...which was part of the reason why she liked them so much. They were both very refreshing, head-strong people, which was probably why they were so perfect together.

One of the thoughts they expressed to her stuck out in her mind more than anything...what's the point in being mad at something or someone when you can make yourself happier by just accepting it? Sometimes Leon said things so dead-on it was scary. Kairi started to question why exactly she was so mad at Riku.

_Because he's a horrible person who has done awful things to innocent people_.

That seemed like a good reason to hate someone. You surely can't love someone like that. But then again who was Kairi to pass judgement on what was horrible and what was not? In saying that Riku was a horrible person was she saying that she was a good person? It certainly wasn't true. Kairi was guilty of anything any normal person would be guilty of. Lying, greed, vainity, looking down on others. Who wasn't a horrible person? Or at least had horrible qualities to them? And thinking more about Riku's past, was it really all that suprising that he used people so?

_What would I do?_

Given that kind of life maybe you HAVE to use people...or not have to but maybe you do without knowing it. If you lived Riku's life would you notice if you had made someone cry? You had cried enough for the both of you. What had crying become to you? Just an every day ordeal like brushing your teeth or eating lunch. He probably couldn't sort out heart break from happiness. His mind had been distorted from all the misfortune he'd been given. That's why he was at Safe House wasn't he? As awful as that place is, it's designed for people who have been broken down to meer shreds.

_Wait, so am I actually making an excuse for Riku? Can you have an excuse for the awful things he's done?_

It wasn't ok what he did...It definatly wasn't ok. But just because something is not ok doesn't mean it comes as a shock or is suprising at all. Come to think of it, the things he'd done weren't suprising at all. In fact it would seem normal given his circumstances...to sacrifice other people's feelings in hopes of regaining yours, to take any form of love from anyone, to use your good looks to your advantage. That would explain the promiscuity. The more Kairi thought about it, the more she realized Riku's actions all seemed pretty normal. But just because it would seem normal for him to act that way, that certainly wasn't an excuse. It was anything but that. But Riku never did make excuses for himself, did he? Never once did Kairi hear him make an excuse. There were never excuses...only apologies. Riku wasn't proud of his actions. He knew he'd done wrong. He thought about the people he hurt everyday. He felt he deserved to be in Safe House. He couldn't hurt anybody there could he?

As wave after wave of realization came over her, the more guilty she began to feel. 'It was awful of me to yell at him' she thought. Riku had enough hurt in his life and he didn't need anybody else calling him a bad person or rubbing what he already feels unimaginably guilty about in his face.

_Holding this grudge is stupid._

What's the point of it? What's it accomplishing? What's it proving? All it's doing is making her feel lousy. Leon was right, there is no point in being mad at someone. Kairi smiled to herself. For the first time all week she had felt excited for something. She couldn't wait to see Riku and apologize.

_Everything will be all right._

Kairi threw the heart shaped pillow she was holding in the air with joy and bolted off her bed. She scrambled around the room to find something to wear, for she was only wearing a pink t-shirt and purple panties. She looked into the mirror quickly.

_Oh, my hair looks awful._

Kairi wanted to look pretty for Riku and found herself frowning at her reflection with it's tangled hair and not-so-fresh looking skin. She quickly brushed her short red hair and put it in two little pig tails. Then rubbed lotion on her face and coated her lips with cherry flavored chapstick. It would have to do. She pulled a pair of lime green shorts out of her drawers and quickly shimmied into them, her legs shaking in excitment. She looked into the mirror again and smiled brightly before sliding into shoes and running out her bedroom door.

* * *

Kairi once again snuck into Safe House and ran down the long hall of residents that seemed to not even notice her. She became alarmed when she reached what was apparently the end of the hall but she hadn't seen Riku. She quickly walked back up the hall this time...still no Riku. Tear started to form in her eyes at thoughts of what might have happened to him. When she reached the empty cell where Riku was supposed to be she began to cry and then pounded on the glass with her fists.

"Riku!" she cried helplessly.

"He's not here," Kairi heard a small, female voice quickly say. She whipped her head around quickly and wiped the tears from her eyes. That was the first time anyone in Safe House besides Riku had said anything to her. The boy in the cell right across from Riku's just blinked at her dully.

"Who said that?" Kairi asked.

"Over here," the voice said again. Kairi heard her more clearly this time and walked diagonally from Riku's cell and stopped and stared open-mouthed, completely shocked at what may have been the most beautiful Kairi would ever see in her entire life.

"Hi," the girl said as she stared up at Kairi from the ground she sat cross-legged on.

Kairi had still not recovered from the shock effect of this girls beauty. She looked around and studied the other people in their cells. If there was anything a kid in Safe House would look like it was not her. Most of them looked like your typical emo kid...black hair that swept over their eyes, dark clothes, an empty expression in their eyes. Some of them may not have fit that description exactly, but this girl stood out more than anything. This girl looked like she was the Aeirth of her school. She looked liked she should be carrying Louis Vuitton and being crowned Homecoming Queen...not sitting in Safe House. Kairi examined the girl more closely. She had gorgeous, long and shiny blonde hair that she put into two child-like pigtails on the sides of her head, deep blue eyes that were so beautiful they could bring tears to a Nazi, full and cute pink lips that anyone would die to kiss, and perfect skin that looked like it had never seen a trace of freckles or acne. She was flawless. She was so beautiful it made Kairi angry. She was like a porceilin doll that someone made for God. But Kairi recovered from the shock of her beauty and noticed what was strange about her. She was wearing a long, white nightgown and cradling a plastic baby doll wrapped in a pink blanket close to her. Kairi looked around her cell and noticed it had many child-like characteristics to it including children's books and finger paints on the wall...many of hearts or rainbows. Kairi stared down at the painfully beautiful girl.

"Hi," Kairi finally replied.

"My name is Kayla, what's yours?" She talked so smoothly. Her voice sounded so friendly. What was she doing here?

"Kairi."

"That's a pretty name," Kayla said as held cuddled her doll closer. There was a slight moment of silence as Kairi didn't know what to say to her first, but she soon remembered why she was in Safe House in the first place.

"Where is Riku?" Kairi quickly asked, suprised that this girl's beauty alone could make her forget.

"They're doing tests on him right now...I don't know when he'll be back," she reached for a plastic bottle to feed her doll.

"TESTS?" Kairi aked alarmingly, "What do you mean tests?"

"I'm not sure exactly," she replied, "They do tests on us all the time."

"What do they do?" Kairi asked, appauled at what Kayla was saying.

"Well..." she began. Kairi noticed that the way she said things was also child-like, "They take us into a room and give us shots...I guess they're trying to keep us from being sick."

Kairi was relieved at what she said and realized that "trying to keep us from being sick" was a code for anti-depresants. Though it really didn't seem to be working. Kairi put it out of her mind and knelt down on the floor in front of Kayla, still cradling the baby. Kayla must have noticed Kairi looking at it.

"Her name is Madison...I've always wanted to name my baby that. I told myself ever since i was in 5th grade that if a had a baby girl I would name her Madison! I love Maddie very much!" She gave the baby a kiss on the forehead. This all seemed too strange for Kairi.

"And what grade are you in now?" she asked.

"I'm not in a grade," Kayla said.

"Well how old are you?" At first Kayla looked at Kairi like this was a rude question, but she soon returned to caring for her doll.

"Seventeen, " Kayla almost grunted. That was a year older than Kairi.

"Do you do to school?" Kairi asked.

"Now that I live here I don't have to go to school. No one here does. But that's ok, if I don't go to school then I have more time to take care of Madison here."

Something was very wrong here. There were about one million questions Kairi could've asked right then, but she was too scared to say anything for fear of causing something catastrophic if she did. Instead she just watched as Kayla cradled the plastic Madison.

"I almost lost Madison you know..." Kayla said with an expressionless tone in her voice.

"Really?" Kairi asked, sensing that maybe this would answer some questions, "How? Do you mind telling me?"

Kayla shook her head no.

"Well..." Kayla began, "Back when I was fifteen Madison had a mean old daddy named Brandon. But at the time Mommy loved Brandon, " Kayla reassured to her doll. She looked back up at Kairi.

"We did bad things together but I didn't feel bad. I liked it. And I loved Brandon so I didn't regret anything...Well, then one day I found out that I was pregnant." Kayla chuckled to herself.

"Oh silly me...at the time I was so scared," she sighed, "If only I knew then that Madison would be the best thing that ever happened to me..."

Kairi stared with wide-eyes as Kayla told her story, which grew more dirsturbing with each passing word. She wondered if this was all made up.

"I told Brandon and he was also very scared," Kayla continued, "He was scared and mad. Mean old Brandon stopped talking to me after that. But when I told my parents they were very VERY mad at me...They were so mad at me they said I couldn't live with them anymore."

"Oh Kayla..." Kairi said sympathetically. She could never imagine what it must've been like to be alone and carry a child at such a young age. Visions of a very pregnant Kayla receiving such comments as "whore" while she walked down the street painfully made their way into Kairi's mind.

"I had to live in the place where foster kids wait to be taken in by a family for a long time. The people ran the place came to me and said that no one wanted to adopt me because I was going to be a mommy. They said I couldn't stay there forever and told me I had to get an abortion if I wanted to have a family. I told them no. I wanted Madison...but they made me get one anyway."

"Wait...," Kairi said, "so you had an abortion?" Kayla nodded.

"It hurt..." She then smoothed her hand over Madison's plastic head.

"I'm so sorry Madison..." Kayla said to the doll. Kairi wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the rest of this story. She didn't know if she could handle it.

"I was very sad after it happened. I lived with about three new families but they all sent me away because all I would do was sit there and cry for Madison or I'd get caught trying to join her with their kitchen knives."

Kairi whinced at this, but Kayla continued talking as if her suicide attempts were nothing.

"But on my third family that's when the greatest thing ever happened!"

"What was that?" Kairi asked softly.

"I found Madison!" Kayla exclaimed.

"You found Madison?" Kairi repeated.

"Yes! She was sleeping with the girl in my foster family! I had no idea WHAT she was doing there..."

Kairi glanced at the doll that she realized probably belonged to a four-year-old child in horror.

"When I took Madison out of the girl's bed the girl started screaming, but I held onto Madison so tight. I was very happy to see her! The family got angry and started yelling. They even tried to take poor Madison away from me but I wouldn't let them! I refused to let them have her. When they finally pryed poor Madison out of my fingers, I ran upstairs and grabbed the loaded gun my foster Dad had in case burglars came. I pointed it at my foster Mommy and Daddy and said 'Give me back Madison!'. They looked at me very frightened but I just wanted my poor girl back. They set her on the floor and ran out of the room. I put down the gun and ran over to Madison and took her in my arms. No one was ever going to take her from me again. I ran away from that house. If I stayed there they would've tried to steal Madison again..."

It WAS too much. Kairi became over-whelmed at how blind people were to each other. Tragedy could happen anywhere...She thought about all the people she had ever seen anywhere in her life. If she knew them or not it didn't matter because any one of them could've been abused, raped, or kidnapped. They could've been pedifiles, theifs, murders but what would she know. All people as a whole cared about was if someone LOOKED normal. If someone had green hair, tattoos, peircings, and a golden soul who treated others with respect, it wouldn't matter because people would automatically assume "druggie", "freak", "juvenille delinqeint". Whereas if people looked at Kayla they would've thought her an angel even though she became pregnant at a young age, had an abortion, and pointed guns at innocent people. Everyone was so closed off from each other it was sick.

"A few minutes later though, two mean men in police cars came and got me," Kayla continued, "They took me to this hospital where I always had to wear an itchy gown. I had to take a lot of little orange pills and talk to a lady about what was going on in my head a lot, but I didn't care because I had Madison!"

Kayla smiled at the doll. Kairi remained in quiet shock over the fact that poor Kayla was sent to a mental institution over a manufactured peice of plastic that in her mind was her aborted baby.

"How long did you stay at the hosptial?" Kairi asked quietly because obviously, Kayla wasn't there now.

"I stayed for about a few months..." she snuggled her doll closer, "but then this mean boy told me Madison wasn't real. He said she was just a doll, can you believe that?"

Kairi couldn't imagine why that boy would ever think that telling her this would go quietly.

"What did you do?" she asked, not entirely wanting to hear the answer.

"I was very VERY mad at him. I pounched on him and I was so mad I almost killed him...Two nurses pulled my hands away from his neck though and then shot me with this stuff that made me very sleepy. I guess those nurses thought it would be better if me and Madison lived here because the next thing I knew we were here!"

Kairi looked at the beautiful attempted murder with tears shining through her eyes.

"I wouldn't have hurt him if he hadn't said anything about Madison!" Kayla said forcefully, "He shouldn't have said that! What was he thinking saying that? Of course Madison is real! She real! She's my baby! I love her! HE SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID THAT!" she screamed.

Kairi backed away from Kayla's cage as an orange light lit, indicating she needed to be shot up with numbing drugs. But Kairi still kept her teary eyes on Kayla who was clutching her doll more tightly than ever as her behavior spun out of control.

"I'm not a bad person! I'm not! He shouldn't have said that! I didn't do anything wrong! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!"

All Kairi could hear were the sounds of Kayla breaking into hysterical sobs as Kairi ran out of Safe House that day. And as she ran with tears streaming down her face, she knew that Kayla was still holding her precious Madison.

Kairi thought harder than she ever had in her entire life that night. It was amazing how the human mind worked. It was amazing how people worked. And it was interesting to compare the breakdown of a girl named Kayla and a boy named Riku. Riku's breakdown resulted in a horrible domino series of events, but with Kayla it took just one shot to make her break. And now Kairi felt more guilty than ever. She had criticized Riku for morphing reality to where he had done nothing wrong, and in doing so she criticized Kayla and everyone else in Safe House. All of them had a different story but they all had one thing in common...They were all living in their own reality. In their minds they had all created a place where nothing bad had ever happened to them...where misfortune didn't exist, and where they were celebrated and loved, where they never did anything wrong. No matter what had caused their poor minds to mutilate a completely different world for them...whether it was the constant let down of everyone around them or the guilt of having an abortion...they were all safe inside their own little worlds where no one had ever considered them freaks.


	10. Into the Rabbit Hole

**Chp 9: Into the Rabbit Hole**

_A/N: I do not own KH or "No Seatbelt Song" by Brand New. This is NOT the final chapter by the way._

* * *

"...And then when he told her that Madison was just a doll she tried to strangle him."

"Nice."

Kairi had been talking to Mandy on the park bench just outside her school for quite some time now. Kairi had found herself confiding in Mandy about her experiences in Safe House lately. Yuffie was her best friend but she felt that something about Mandy would understand what she was going through more. That and Mandy had something that Kairi needed most...talking to Mandy made her feel closer to Riku. The two still hadn't spoken since their fight. Kairi went back to Safe House as often as she could but she would never find her beautiful angel there. Kairi felt like it was all over between her and Riku and the feeling was too much to bear.

"Does she still have the doll?" Mandy asked after smoothing out the wrinkles on her black miniskirt.

"Yes she does," Kairi replied. Images of Kayla cradling her plastic doll for dear life as Kairi ran down that lonely hall came washing over Kairi in painful, smothering waves.

"It was the saddest thing I had ever seen..."

"Yeah, that's pretty fucked up," Mandy said as she long one long drag of her cigarette.

"Do you want one?" Mandy asked as she held out her silver case to Kairi.

"No thank you," she replied. A reflective silence fell between the two lovely girls. Mandy lit another cigarette and Kairi stared down at the skirt of her yellow dress. They were both lost and being dragged down with thoughts of the boys they loved so much. It was creating a sad and awkward tension in the air. Kairi looked over at Mandy sadly sucking away on her cigarette and soon realized why Mandy smoked so much, why she did so much drugs, why she slept with so many boys. Kairi at least had a small glimmer of hope for Riku, but it was all over for Mandy and Daniel. He was dead and he wasn't coming back. Kairi couldn't imagine losing someone she loved as much as Mandy loved Daniel.

_I guess this is what you do when it's all over...you fuck the pain away._

Tears started to swell up in Kairi's blue eyes. Mandy, taking note of this, quickly tried to change the subject.

"So I bet you have a nice, expensive prom dress picked out, huh Kairi?" Mandy was never one to deal with someone crying. Kairi sighed.

"Yes...it's long and purple and has that bunched up design at the bottom...I like it."

Mandy raised her eyebrows and nodded. Kairi attempted to carry on the conversation.

"So are you going to prom?" she asked.

"Surprise, surprise, I am actually," Mandy dully replied.

"Really, with who?"

"One of my guy friends...James...he has this big crush on me and he asked me to go and I couldn't find it in me to turn his cute little self down."

"Aww, that's so cute. Do you like him?" Mandy took another long drag of her cigarette.

"I can never have feelings for another boy again...I'm very convinced I'm going to die alone." Kairi quickly tried to escape that horribly awkward statement.

"Oh Mandy you're not going to die alone...just go lesbian." Mandy actually smiled.

"There's a reasonable option..." she replied, "Or I could find an adorable gay boy who I care about deeply and he cares about me and we could stay married forever and just have sex with other people."

"Yeah...but you two could have sex if it was a special occasion, like Christmas."

"Or our birthday."

"Or if one of you was just having a bad day." The two girls giggled.

"That sounds like fun," Kairi said.

"Yes it does...So," Mandy said, changing the subject, "I supposed you're going to prom with that Sora boy." Kairi sighed.

"Yes I am." Mandy raised her eyebrows as she ashed her cigarette.

"You know I don't get you...You say you love Riku but you are still with Sora. Do you really love Riku?" Mandy asked defensively.

"Yes, I really do Mandy." Kairi replied.

"Then why the hell are you still with Sora?" Kairi could feel the tears forming in her eyes.

"Because Mandy, what kind of relationship can I have with Riku? I'm doubting that I'm ever going to see him again anyway. I haven't in weeks. I don't even want to love Riku anymore! All it's causing me is pain. It's just...pointless."

"Do you think my relationship with Daniel was easy?" Mandy said in a loud tone, "Hell no princess! It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but our love was great. We had once in a lifetime love. I could've just walked away. I could be just a normal, happy girl right now. But I wouldn't trade the love that I had with Daniel for anything in the world."

Shame prevented Kairi from saying anything in reply to this.

"Are you saying that you just want to be with Sora because it's an easy ride? Have you ever heard that the best things in life don't come easy?"

"I know Mandy, but..."

"But what? You and Riku aren't fucking are you?" Mandy interrupted.

"That's not the point!" Kairi shouted.

"Then what is the damn point because I'm really missing it!"

"The point is I have a boyfriend Mandy! I shouldn't having these feelings for anybody, let alone a boy that I can't even touch and will probably never see again. I mean, I feel like a freakin slut! I love Sora Mandy, I really do. It's not fair to him. It's just better for everybody if I forget about Riku. He's causing nothing but trouble for me and everybody around me..."

A disgusted silence from Mandy was followed by Kairi's statement. Kairi tired to look awkwardly away from Mandy's death stare.

"Kairi..." Mandy began, "Would you consider us friends?"

"Yes..." she quickly replied.

"Well we met because of Riku...Is that such a bad thing?" Kairi bent her head down in shame. Mandy, completely disgusted at Kairi, got up from the bench where they were sitting.

"You know what Kairi? Maybe you should do what you want and not what you think everyone wants you to do. That's what you've been doing your whole life anyway. Don't you ever get sick of it?"

And with that Mandy turned on the heels of her boots and left Kairi alone on the park bench feeling worse than she ever had in her entire life.

* * *

"Oh darling you look so beautiful!" Kairi's mom gushed as she helped her lace up the back of her dress.

It was prom night. Whoo hoo. Kairi kept relatively quiet as her mother fawned over her and made sure everything about her dress was perfect. She stared at her reflection in her full-length mirror. She was perfect. She wore a long lavender dress, expensive silver shoes, and her short red hair had rhinestone barrettes in it. Kairi didn't need to do anything to her already beautiful face, but she settled with her mom and wore a little bit of blush and some lip gloss.

"You look absolutely perfect darling!" Her mom went on, "I know you'll have a great time. Don't be pressured into doing anything foolish now honey..."

_Hah!_

Kairi knew exactly what was going to happen at prom. They'd take their pictures, and eat at their restaurant, but the second they got out of prom, that's when everything really happened. The booze would go down, the skirts would go up. They'd fuck, smoke, pass out, and go home happy and completely innocent.

_"I had a great time mom"_

"I trust you my darling girl. I know you'll make the right decisions. Sora is a good boy. Oh honey you'll have such a great time. You're going to remember this night for the rest of your life..."

* * *

After Sora, Leon, and Yuffie picked Kairi up in their limo, she managed to successfully carry on conversation with everyone even though she had never felt more cliche in her entire life. All night she kept stepping out of herself and looking in on herself riding around in that limo, eating at a fancy 4-star restaurant, and bearing the pain of her heels, and couldn't help but feel completely unoriginal. Her feelings got even worse when she stepped into the actual prom. When you stepped into the building, one would face an explosion of floor length dresses and tuxedos. The occasional short dress and white tuxedo would enter your vision as well. The sounds of TRL pop singers singing crappy remakes of one great songs by 80s bands rang through Kairi's ears. Even though all this trendy music was playing few people were actually dancing. This wasn't middle school, they were all too cool to dance. There was a whole table of fancy entrees that their 60 dollar tickets helped paid for but barely anyone touched them. Once again, they were too cool to eat.

Several people came up to Kairi and Yuffie, in her long, flowing yellow dress, and would tell them how great they looked, but Kairi knew exactly what all those bitchy, mean girls were really thinking. They were comparing their dress to hers and would smirk in their minds, coming to conclusion that they looked better than her. It was all so pathetic.

"Do you want to dance?" Sora asked Kairi as a Jessica Simpson song rang over the speakers.

_Ugh_

"Sure," she replied with a smile.

After a few dances and strolls around the room talking to all the socialites while Sora held his hand around Kairi's waist like she was her property, Kairi started to feel suffocated. Everyone was saying the exact same thing. It seemed like all anybody around her was programmed to talk about was "You look so nice", "What are THEY doing here?", "Who requested this weird-ass song?".

_Why can't they all say what they're really thinking?_ Kairi thought. She wished so much that someone somewhere would say "I can't believe I fucking paid 60 dollars just to stand around and talk about stupid shit while I listen to crappy music". She had to get out. It was too much. She was drowning in a sea of conformity.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Kairi told Sora quickly. She broke away from Sora's grasp and started to walk quickly away.

"But they're about to start senior lead-out!" he called after her.

_Fuck senior lead-out_

When Kairi got into the bathroom she let out a deep sigh like she had been holding her breath for the past hour. And in many ways she was. All night she's been holding her tongue to keep from saying what she really wanted to say, she's been holding her breath to keep from laughing at the stupid things people around her were saying, and she'd been holding back from doing what she wanted to do...which was leave.

A bathroom flushed, and out of the stall came Mandy looking gorgeous. Her long, dark brown hair was wavy and falling down her back and her big blue eyes peeked out from underneath her bangs. She was wearing a short, lacy black dress and lace-up black high heels.

"Oh Mandy you look so beautiful..." Kairi said breathlessly. And she really did. She was more beautiful than the popular girls and outcasts alike. Mandy smiled.

"Thank you..." Mandy looked in the mirror and fixed her breasts. "So how has your marvelous night been?"

"Shit," Kairi quickly replied. Mandy smirked. She reached in her little black purse and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds.

"Do you want one?" she asked. For one in her life, Kairi could really use a cigarette.

"Yes."

Kairi and Mandy sat on the bathroom sinks and dragged away on their cigarettes, enduring the snide looks from everyone that walked in on them, praying that a teacher wouldn't walk in.

"Isn't Sora still out there?" Mandy asked.

"He's got his own friends." Kairi replied with a goofy smile, feeling light-headed from her first intake of nicotine, "What about your date?"

"He's got his own friends." Kairi giggled. She felt stoned.

"These are great," she said.

"Yeah, well don't get used to the feeling," Mandy replied, "It only lasts for like the first three cigarettes and then you have to smoke pot to get high."

There was a few minutes of silence as Kairi lite another cigarette with Mandy's silver lighter.

"So...Having a good time with Sora?" Mandy said in a condescending tone. Kairi blew a cloud of smoke into the air and sighed.

"I think if it were just Sora and me I'd have a good time...So far my night has just been really gay."

"Are you sure you'd have a good time if it was just Sora?" Mandy replied sternly. Kairi frowned at her and said nothing. Mandy raised her eyebrows at her and lite another cigarette. A few moments of awkward and tense silence passed.

"So what are you doing after prom?" Kairi asked quietly. Mandy laughed.

"Fuck..." she pulled out a little plastic bag with two pills of ecstacy in it and dangled it in the air like it was candy, "I damn well know that my ankles are going past my ears tonight."

Kairi giggled and choked on the smoke she just inhaled.

"What?" Mandy said, "Don't you get annoyed by innocent little bitches who think their god-sent date isn't going to try and get into THEIR splash waterwalls?"

"Splash waterfalls..." Kairi said through her tears of laughter. The two girls giggled together and Mandy told dirty jokes about after-prom incidents with big football players with small packages and their big-breasted dates, two horny band geeks, and a silent kinky sex freak and her unsuspecting virgin date. The two girls sat and told jokes on the bathroom floor for about thirty minutes. Kairi realized that this moment had been one of the best times in her life. Just sitting on a floor smoking and talking about all the things that people were afraid to say. She had completely forgotten all about the prom outside of the girls' bathroom by the time one of Mandy's friends came rushing in the door.

"Dude someone narked on you two for smoking in the girls' room!" they said urgently.

_No!_ Kairi thought. She was having so much fun. She almost felt angry at Mandy for immediately throwing the rest of her cigarette in the bathroom sink and darting out of the room. Kairi remained on the floor as she watched the bathroom door close. She didn't want it to end. She didn't want to go out there. She felt like crying. One of the best moments of her life had been snatched away from her just like that.

Kairi eventually got up from her lonely tile floor. She walked slowly over to the sink and washed her hands. She took a long, hard look at herself in her big, expensive designer dress and then walked slowly back into the real world.

When Kairi stepped outside she kept hearing her name being called out from a loud speaker over and over again in the midst of heavy applause.

_Kairi_

_Kairi_

_Kairi_

She clasped her hands violently over her ears thinking it was the voices in her head. But the voices and the applause just got louder. She started to recognize the voices calling out her name.

"Kairi"

"Kairi"

"Kairi"

She couldn't take it anymore. Finally Kairi screamed out "WHAT!"

Yuffie suddenly ran up to her and took her by the hand. She kept saying something and seemed to be really happy about it but Kairi couldn't make it out over the applause. Yuffie pulled her through a sea of people that started to make Kairi nauseous. Finally the sea stopped, and she was standing in front of a smiling Sora who was wearing a plastic crown. Then finally she heard those life-ending words.

"You're prom queen!"

It was all too much. She had just fallen into the rabbit hole. Her pulse started to race and her vision started to blur as a tiara was put on top of her head and a bouquet of flowers was shoved into her skinny arms. Everything around her was spinning.

_Is this really what you've always wanted?_

Kairi remembered a time when she used to dream about this. When she used to fantasize about people clapping for her and calling out her name as she was placed on a pretty pedestal for all to envy. But that time seemed so far away now.

_Should I really wear this crown?_

All her life she'd been told she was a princess, higher than everybody, the queen of the social food chain. And this is all what it had been for. This was it. She was it. She was the queen bee. Her purpose had been served now. She would play out the rest of her high school like a goddess and then she'd graduate, get wild, get married, and fall off the face of the earth at fourty-five.

Kairi realized exactly what she was right then. All her life she's been programmed to be a certain way. Everything about her was calculated from the way she dressed to the way she acted. She might as well not have even had a personality. All he was an image. Something unworthy to look up to.

_I'm nothing_

She was nothing. Kairi felt so sick that she wanted to pass out right then and there. She had no idea who she was. She was fake...plastic...an empty shell. Wave after wave of realization came over her and crushed her into the sands of defeat. She realized that everything in her life she had liked only because someone had told her to like it. Her entire life had been handed to her. She made no decisions on her own...she didn't have a mind of her own. Her mind belonged to everyone else but her.

_I'm nothing...I don't fucking know who I am_

"Kairi? Kairi?" Sora said over and over again trying to get his princess's attention. He grabbed her hand.

"Kairi you're prom queen..." he said to her. Then Kairi burst out into hysterical sobs that rang through the whole prom. Sora backed away from her in shock as every person there was silenced and looking at Kairi like she was crazy. The silence and the stares didn't stop her. Kairi continued to cry loudly as her mascara ran down her pale cheeks. Not a word was spoken as they all watched their queen cry.

"Kairi what is your problem?" Sora hissed, clearly embarrassed. She continued to cry as the bouquet she was holding drooped to her side. She eventually dropped the flowers all together. Harsh whispers started to fill the room now. Kairi sniffed loudly and wiped the mascara out from underneath her eyes.

"I'm sorry Sora..." she finally said, "This isn't what I want. None of this is what I want."

Sora stared at Kairi sadly as his posture dropped. Kairi had never been sure of much in her life, but this she was definitely sure of. She looked into Sora's eyes defiantly.

"And that includes you..."

And with that, Kairi turned away from her prom king and broke through the crowd of people, walking away from the life that she wouldn't live anymore. She had to start from scratch, and knew exactly who to start with.

* * *

"Kairi!" Riku cried out as he immediately ran up to his glass and sat down in front of Kairi, pressing his pale palms into hers. He was exploding with conversation.

"Oh my God Kairi, I've been a fucking mess without you. Oh darling, you look so beautiful. Why are you wearing that dress? Why are you crying? Oh shit I'm so fucking sorry...I can't shut up. I've just missed you so fucking much."

Tears ran down Kairi's face.

"Oh Riku, I've been a mess without you," she cried. "You have no idea. I don't ever want to be apart from you!"

"I don't ever want to be apart from you my beautiful angel," Riku said breathlessly, causing Kairi to melt. He was slowly filling up all the empty within her. She pressed her other palm onto the glass and Riku quickly pressed his hand up against it.

"Riku, I was nothing before I met you." Kairi began, "I was a fucking robot. All my thoughts, and all my feelings, and everything I had ever been through before I met you was completely fake. You showed me so much of the world that I was being blind-folded to in such a short amount of time. Without you I'm an empty shell Riku."

"Kairi..." Riku said with tears in his eyes, "You don't know how good it feels to hear you say that."

They kissed each other tenderly through the glass.

"I don't know who Kairi is Riku. But I don't want to find out with anyone else except you."

Riku cried as he stared at his love who was slowly bringing him to life again.

"I love you so much Kairi."

"I love you Riku..."

The two teenagers stared at each other with more passion than some people will ever feel in their entire life as tears feel down their faces. They kissed once more.

Kairi didn't know who she was. She didn't know where she was heading. But she now knew where she wanted to go. She knew what she want. She finally had something real in her grasp. Something that she found all on her own and that no one else could give her.

So it's sad this doesn't suit you now

And me fresh out of rope

Please ignore the lisp, I never meant to sound like this

So take me and break me

And make me strong like you

I'll be forever grateful to this and you

It's only you beautiful

Or I don't want anyone

If I can choose, It's only you

Fix me to a chain around you neck

And wear me like a nickel

Even new wine served in old skins cheapens the taste

I shot the pilot

I'm begging you to fly this for me

I'm here for you to use

Broken and bruised

Do you understand?

It's only you beautiful

Or I don't want anyone

If I can choose, it's only you

But how could I miscalculate?

Perfect eyes will have perfect hate

If I could choose, it's only you

We're wrecking

And I'm dry like a drum with springs to find, I'll leave

We're spending

Take out time in trails, measured in miles

We'll slave for days and weeks

It's only you beautiful

Or I don't want anyone

If I can choose it's only you

But how could I miscalculate?

Perfect lies from a perfect aim

If I can choose it's only you


	11. Hitler Would Be Proud of You

**Chp 11: Hitler Would Be Proud of You**

* * *

_It had finally happened. Riku was out of his cage. Kairi cried in sheer joy as Riku stepped out into the world and finally wrapped her in his strong embrace. He wiped the tears away from her eyes and the two tasted each other's lips for the first time. Since Riku had been trapped for so long, he found that he could fly. He took Kairi by the hand and flew her all around the world. They stood in the long clear fields of New Zealand, they climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, they ran through the bust streets of Tokyo, and made love on the beaches of the Bahamas. They saw the whole world but knew that they already had the whole world right in front of them. They held each other in loving embraces and whispered promises in the napes of each other's necks of how they would never leave each other. The two lost souls and finally found everything they were missing in the arms of one another. Nothing would ever shake the feeling the two felt just looking into one another's eyes._

_Then Riku threw Kairi on the ground. She looked at him questioningly. Then he started screaming at her._

_"WAKE UP!" he screamed, "WAKE UP!"_

_"Riku!" Kairi shouted in a shocked tone. Then he started to kick her in her pale ribs._

_"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" he screamed over and over again. Tears ran down Kairi's face and stained her cheeks in red._

_"Riku what are you doing?" she cried._

_"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"_

Kairi opened her eyes to find that it was all a dream and that she was being repeatedly kicked in the ribs and big black boots. She screamed in pain. She didn't know what was going on.

"KAIRI!" Riku shouted. Kairi lifted her head, and when the tears of pain cleared out of her eyes she realized what had happened. She was still wearing her prom dress. She had fallen asleep on the ground. She couldn't believe how bad she fucked up.

"KAIRI RUN!" he screamed. There were about four Safe House workers around Riku. They all had pinned him to the ground in his desperate to break free of their grasp. One of them was filling up a syringe with a yellow liquid.

"RIKU!" Kairi screamed with tears in her eyes. The guilt inside Kairi was breaking through her skin and threatening to slit her throat. She couldn't even speak. It was like watching a city being destroyed be a hurricane she created with her own bare hands.

_It's all my fault. It's all my fault. It's all my fault._

She couldn't even feel the pain of whoever's size 12 boot it was kicking sharply into her delicate ribs. She sobbed hysterically as she watched some women wrap her ugly, boney, plastic glove wrapped fingers over Riku's beautiful lips and muffling his screams.

"GET OFF THE GOD DAMN FLOOR!" the man kicking her screamed. Riku bit down hard on the women's hand. She yelped in pain as blood started to clot under her glove.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU, YOU FUCK!" Riku screamed at the top of his lungs at the man kicking Kairi. Tears flooded down Kairi's face. All she could do was scream and cry. What else could she do? Soon one of the workers pried Riku's arm away from him and stabbed the syringe into one of his veins.

A piercing scream rang through the air followed by deafening silence.

And then Riku was no longer moving. He laid limp in the arms of the workers. His skin was pale and his pupils were wide and dilated, but they were still looking at Kairi.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Kairi screamed. She couldn't believe this scene of corruption had actually played out in front of her own eyes…..corruption that some spend their entire lives trying to hide away from. And now here she was, 16, and watching corporate rapists black out the lights in her true love's eyes.

"GET HER OUT OF HERE!" a harsh voice screamed. And with that cold and angry fingertips dug into Kairi's tender arms and drug her away from Safe House as he watched her love being carried away by men and women in lab coats.

* * *

Kairi sat on her bed as her mother paced back and forth. She ran her hands feverishly through her long, brown hair as she too long drags of her cigarette. She'd occasionally look up and make shocked and angry faces at Kairi. Kairi had not once looked at her mother since she was driven home in that big, black van and shoved into her house as her mother stepped outside to have a word with the Safe House workers. 

"Kairi, I don't even know WHERE to begin!" Her mother barked at her.

_Shut up you bitch….I just want to go to sleep._

"How in the hell had you been getting in there anyway?"

"You're key," she answered coolly.

"MY KEY?" her mother yelled. Her eyes grew wide in fury, but Kairi remained calm and looked at her mother with a blank, almost bored face. What did it matter if she was in trouble? Riku may be being killed right now for all she knew.

"How in the hell did you get my key?" her mother screeched.

"I just went through your stuff and stole it…." She said it with the passion of someone who was taking out the trash.

"KAIRI!" Her mother couldn't even speak she was so furious. She threw her killed cigarette on the ground and fiercely lit another, not even knowing what to say to her daughter.

"Kairi, where the hell do you get off saying this to me?" She finally said after a long, tension-filled silence.

Would you rather me lie?

"How did you manage to even see the residents?"

"The prisoners you mean….."

"THE PATIENTS KAIRI! How did you get to them?" Kairi sighed.

"You took me there one day….you got a call and you took me inside and told me to wait in the lobby. It wasn't hard. I just went through the door that said 'Patient's Room'."

It was clear to see how upset her mother was by Kairi's lack of anything to show that she was remotely phased by any of this. Her mother's red turned red and she continuously ran her hand through her hair.

"You weren't supposed to go in there Kairi! Safe House is only for authorized personnel."

Life started to enter her.

"Yes mother….I know it was only for the 'authorized personnel'. I mean murderers prefer to go silent don't they?"

"KAIRI! Safe House is saving those kids' lives."

"SAVING THEM!" Kairi rose to her feet, "Since when is keeping them locked up like animals saving them?"

"We're saving them from themselves!" They were screaming at each other now.

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE LOCKED UP LIKE THAT!"

"They're a danger to society Kairi!"

"They're all fucking teenagers! What? And the ass holes sitting in government offices pressing buttons to set off bombs in foreign countries aren't?"

"Don't you DARE say that word in front of me missy!"

"What are you going to do? Send me to Safe House where I can do nothing but rot in my own sadness!"

"We're helping them Kairi. We're trying to make them better!"

"NO YOU'RE NOT! They're never going to get out and you know it. You're just trying to see how you can keep them alive aren't you? This is all a game isn't it? Like watching flies drop out!"

"Teen suicide is a very horrible problem Kairi!"

"Then that's what this is about isn't it? You just want to lower the teen suicide rate because YOU think it's the right thing to do."

"It is the right thing to do Kairi! They could be so much if they could just…."

"THEY'RE DEAD ALREADY MOTHER! They were fucked up enough and some people decided that holding them completely prisoner would ACTUALLY help! I've seen them mom. They're all empty shells."

"So what you're saying that they should all die because they're empty?"

"Mom did you ever think maybe it's better to just let them die? It's what they all want anyway!"

"We can't just do that Kairi! Everyone deserves the chance to be saved!"

"They're not being saved mom…..They're being killed. They're all having knives stabbed into them every single day."

"Don't be foolish Kairi…..they're not being killed."

"They are being killed and YOU'RE helping."

"Kairi….." her mother said sternly.

"Murderer…."

"Kairi…."

"Murderer."

"KAIRI!" she was red in the face.

"MURDERER! MURDER! MURDER MUDER! MUDERER!" She stomped her feet and clenched her fist like a toddler screaming for something they want. "Go burn in hell you fucking Nazi!"

A hand came sharply across Kairi's face. She lightly touched her hand to her stinging cheek and looked at her mom, who was staring at her with icy eyes.

"Go to your room…." Her mom said harshly, "and get comfortable up there because you are never going to see that boy or your friends outside of school ever again."

Kairi didn't move. She stared at her with hatred burning through her eyes and through the red spot on her cheek….trying not to let the tears in the back of her eyes fall.

"GO!" she screamed. Kairi finally turned around and stomped up the long stairs. She heard her mother throw her lighter against the wall and make a loud smack. Kairi swung open the door to her room and just before she heard her mother slam the door to her own room, Kairi stuck her head out of her door and shouted out

"Hitler would be proud of you!"

And when she finally slammed the door to her room, Kairi slid down against the door and let those forbidden tears fall.

* * *

Things at school had obviously changed for Kairi after what had been popularly referred to as "Kairi's prom incident", but she couldn't care less. Some people were freaked out by Kairi's stand up and stopped talking to her. Some people tried to talk to her, but Kairi was no longer nice to them and simply just didn't give the people she could care less about the time of day. She cut everybody out of her life….everybody except Mandy and Yuffie. 

Kairi was waiting on a park bench near her school during fifth period. Kairi's cell phone had been taken away, since she couldn't talk to her friends outside of school this was the only way she could tell them what she had to. It was 1:15. The cold air blew through Kairi's hair. Her cheeks grew rosy on her pale skin. Just when Kairi thought that she had been let down, Mandy walked up wearing a long wool black jacket and a grey scarf. Kairi smiled.

"Ok..." Mandy said as she approached the bench, "my toes nails feel like they are going to pop off my feet." Kairi giggled. Mandy sat down beside her and sighed. Just then Yuffie ran up wearing her dad's army jacket.

"Hey Kairi. Hey Mandy," she pulled her yellow toboggan over her ears and sat down.

"Ok, so what's the deal?" Yuffie asked.

And then Kairi told them everything. She didn't leave out a single detail. She traced through every moment of Riku and Kairi's history starting from the first time she set foot in Safe House to her being kicked in the ribs as she watched Riku have a needle stuck in his veins and to her mother telling her she would never see Riku or any of her friends outside of school again.

After Kairi was finished telling the story all three girls were silent. Hearing the whole story being told at once made the whole thing seem so unlikely, yet at the same time more real than ever.

"So what are you saying?" Yuffie finally asked slowly. Kairi bent her head down.

"I need you two to help me...I can't go on like this. I can't go on not even knowing if he is alive or dead. I NEED something...someway...I need just the slightest connection to him. You two don't understand...I need this so much."

Mandy frowned. She DID understand.

_You should be lucky that you even have SOME hope..._

"So you want us to go into Safe House and find Riku?" Yuffie asked.

"Yes...I know that's such a selfish thing to ask but..."

"Oh no Kairi not at all" Yuffie started, "I would be more than happy to..."

"I'll do it," Mandy interrupted. Yuffie, being taken aback like this scowled at her.

"Don't give me that look," Mandy told her, "This is MY territory."

"You are such a bitch!" Yuffie yelled. Kairi touched her friends arm.

"Please Yuffie...don't be mad at her." she begged, "She needs to see Riku even more than I do..."

* * *

Mandy walked down the hallway wanting to throw up. Kairi had told her what to expect in Safe House but words couldn't even describe how she felt as she walked by those placid faces with empty dark eyes...not even realizing she was there. 

_Maybe that should be me..._

Mandy's heart was beating fast. She was so nervous. Seeing Riku would be like coming face to face with the last living connection she had to Daniel anywhere in the world. She close her eyes and remembered all those nights of getting tore up, and passing out, and laughing, and cuddling, and love, and making love, and nights that she wished would never end. She remembered the best days of her life...days that she could never live again. She opened her eyes and let go of all those memories with a heavy and pain-filled sigh and just tried to focus on the life in front of her. She was doing this for Kairi...And then she heard a soft, soothing voice form behind her.

"Mandy?..."


	12. Ghost of You

**Chp 12: Ghost of You**

* * *

_A/N: This chapter, while short, was completely relevant in keeping it on it's own._

* * *

Mandy held her breath. She didn't turn around. She didn't want to face it. It had been so long, but she could still recognize a voice from her past like an angel in a room full of demons. She didn't know if she could actually handle it. Seeing him...being near him...talking to him...being reminded of what she once loved.

"Mandy?" she could hear him get up and walk over to the glass in excitement, "Mandy? Is that you?"

She closed her eyes tightly, unprepared to turn around, but she couldn't avoid she desperate taps on the glass or the cries of "Mandy? Mandy?" anymore. She turned around to face what she knew was behind her.

When she turned around a look of joyful and sad shock came across Riku's face. He was as beautiful as she remembered.

"Mandy..." he said breathlessly.

"Hi Riku..." Now that she was actually face to face with someone she'd been dying to see she had no idea what to say. After an awkward silence she desperately fished for what to say.

"So how are you?" Right when those words fell out of her mouth she immediately regretted it. He seemed to have sensed this though and replied back

"I'm getting by..." The two stared at each other for a long time. Too afraid to ask what needed to be asked and to afraid to say what needed to be said. Mandy sighed and let her long black coat drop to the floor.

"Oh Mandy..." Riku said sadly. While she had always dressed in a short of gothic manner, Riku had never seen her looking this...slutty. In a tight black sweater that squeezed at her breasts, and tempting black miniskirt that showed off her perfect pale legs, he remembered again what used to make his pants tight.

"What?" she said darkly, knowing exactly what he was referring to. He smirked.

"I see you haven't changed...you've still got that same smart-ass little bitch attitude of yours."

She scowled, but not so much out of anger. She smiled the perfect temptress smile a raised and eyebrow.

"And what about you Mr. Riku? Still fucked up? Still a skeezy little womanizer?"

"Well I'm probably more fucked up than you remember, and I can't really be a womanizer in here now can I?"

"I suppose not," she said blandly. They both sat down on the ground, seeing as this was going to be a long discussion.

"So what about you?" Riku said, "How have your sexcapades been wearing tempting little outfits like that?"

Mandy dropped a little in spirit. She bent her down and started playing with the shoelaces of her boots.

"You'd be surprised at the boys I've had...I've fucked everyone from the scene boy running the register at Hot Topic, to the kid standing in the corner that no one talks to, to the guy that catches the football in the football games."

Riku sighed sadly, knowing exactly what all of this was about. He couldn't be brought up...it was too taboo. He couldn't be spoken of between the two of them.

"Are you using protection?" Riku asked with all sincerity. Mandy smirked and ran her hand over her smooth stomach.

"I pretty much have to...the group home people wouldn't be too keen on paying for an abortion now would they?"

Riku shook his head.

"But there's a girl in here that got pregnant and her parents kicked her out, and then the foster family she stayed with MADE her get an abortion. They didn't kick her out after that though...she went crazy and then they kicked her out."

"Hmm...well that's a foster family. In a group home they kick you out if they find out your pregnant."

"You weren't actually thinking about keeping it were you?" Riku asked. Mandy's eyes grew sad.

"I was kind of torn...I sure as hell didn't want a baby over my head, but at the same time I wanted to keep it so bad...It would have been the last shred of him left on this earth. It was like we could have been together again in a small way."

A tear fell from her crystal eyes.

"Oh Mandy..." Riku sighed as he placed his hand against the glass. She sniffed.

"Well, it was probably for the best...if that baby looked to much like him there's no telling what I would have done."

Riku nodded in agreement. He watched sadly as pained tears fell down her beautiful face.

"Mandy, I know I can't possibly tell you that you need to let him go...But Daniel loved you, he wouldn't want you to be like this. You know he'd probably kill himself with jealousy if he could see you now."

"AND LIKE I WASN'T BACK THEN?" she shouted.

"Shhh...Mandy try not to yell. I know Mandy, I know."

"Yes you DO know Riku," she said in an audible whisper, "You were there every single time he fucked some random girl and you said NOTHING. I bet you even encouraged it you little fuck!"

"The hell I encouraged it," both parties were speaking in vengeful tones now, "I couldn't encourage him to do SHIT. If I was able to do that then he'd still be alive right now! And you wouldn't be in a group and I wouldn't be in this prison!"

"So you said NOTHING to him about the fact that he was hurting me by sleeping with other girls?"

"YES, god damn it, Mandy I did. And you know what he said? 'Oh It's ok Riku, we talked about it, she understands'. So maybe if YOU had actually said something earlier then he wouldn't have done what he did!"

As soon as those words rolled of his tongue like gum balls, they were met with the most horrified and guilty look he had ever seen in his life. He instantly wanted to bash his head into the wall for even THINKING of saying that to her.

"Mandy? Mandy, I'm so sorry I didn't mean it." He eyes were wide and crystalized as she hugged her knees tightly and rocked back and forth in a ball.

"You're right..." she said softly and sadly.

"Mandy? Mandy? Listen to me. Mandy? Listen. LISTEN TO ME GOD DAMN IT!" He pounded his fist on the wall hard and loud enough to wake everyone who was sleeping. He let out a silent yelp of pain for almost breaking his hand. Mandy snapped out of her state and looked squarely at him.

"Mandy," he said in a soft tone, for he was still shaking in pain, "You don't know this but he had done what he did MANY times before. It was like a bi-monthly thing. Every time he'd do the exact same thing, except in all the other times, he somehow didn't die. There was nothing you could have done, or I could have done to stop him. I'm sorry Mandy, it pains me to say this too, but it was BOUND to happen."

"RIKU!" she let out in a horrified tone.

"Shut up Mandy, don't be blind. It was bound to happen and you KNOW it. You know it Mandy."

Mandy gently knocked her head into her knees. She let out a heavy sigh.

"You're right Riku..." He smiled a sad smile at her.

"You know...I think every time he took off like that he knew he was going to die, because he always left this with me...hang on."

Riku got off the floor and scurried back in his cage and started rummaging through a chest he had. He threw several pieces of paper with scribbled writings on them out before he found what he was looking for.

"Here it is."

Riku walked back over to Mandy and sat down, then he opened his palm and let a long, sliver locket come dangling out.

"Every single time he left he would give this to me and say 'Please give this to Mandy'."

She smiled at the beautiful locket, and lightly touched her finger tips against the glass.

"And that's not all..." he said in a cheerful tone, at seeing Mandy smile, he opened the locket to reveal a picture of Daniel and Mandy smiling as they held each other.

"Oh Riku..." she said with tears in her eyes.

"Don't thank me, thank Daniel."

And for the first time in so long, Mandy looked at something Daniel had left behind and smiled.

"Oh I love it."

"Mandy, I promise that when I get out, the first thing I will do is give this to you."

She couldn't stop smiling. Riku smirked.

"I miss that smile of yours kid," he said smoothly. She laughed and looked him in the eyes.

"I missed you," she said.

"I missed you too Mandy."


	13. Finding the Light

**Chp 13: Finding the Light**

* * *

Riku and Mandy let the skin beneath their legs grow cold as they sat Indian-style on the ground and reminisced about the happier times they once had. They spoke of nights they danced their hearts out at shows listening to bands scream their lungs out, evenings where they blew smoke into the air and laughed until the stars came out, and days trying to savor the sunlight as it hit their pale skins before night would fall and they would have to part. It's funny to think that two people so trapped in their own lives were once so free. Mandy let out a sigh.

"Riku...do you ever think our lives will be like they were?"

He gave a concerned look at his dear friend as he tried to think of an honest answer.

"I don't know Mandy..." he finally said, "If any one has a chance of it, it will be you. I don't even know where the fuck I'm going to be in a year. Hell, I don't even know where I'm going to be next week. I could die tomorrow for all I know."

"Riku, don't say that." His brutal truth made her insides cringe.

"Please Mandy...out of all the people in the world you are the very last I expect to be naive to me."

She sighed.

"Well Riku what do you expect me to say? Do you want me to be like 'oh yes Riku you're life is most likely going to be one downward ride to shit now'? Besides isn't this place eighteen and out just like any other foster care place?"

"Well first off Mandy, look around, does this place look like a normal foster home would?"

"Ass hole," Mandy snarled.

"Hang on, hang on," he said, "But most importantly is that I don't really know. This place hasn't been running too long and I don't even think anyone here is over eighteen. But as of right now, I could give two shits less about what is going to happen to me...all I care about is having Kairi in my life."

Mandy raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, about that...why do you find her so spectacular anyway?"

Riku ignored her smart ass tone and instantly began to serenade of his love for Kairi. Mandy gave him blank stares as he moved into his own world while talking about the vibrant colors of her hair, the sheen of her skin, the music of her voice, the power of her eyes. Mandy wasn't really paying attention before...this was all too familiar for her.

"Well Riku that's all fine and dandy," she interrupted, "but tell me, how is Kairi different from any other nameless, faceless girl you used up and threw away?"

To this, Riku said nothing. He just met her words with a horrified stare, as if her saying this was betraying him in some way.

"Kairi is on a completely different world than any of those girls Mandy!" he replied sternly.

"Oh is she? I seem to remember you telling PLENTY of emo chicks 'oh you're so pretty...oh you give me chills...oh I could stay like this forever'. Remember who you're talking to Riku...I know ALL about you."

"Mandy, will you please just believe me when I say that Kairi is different?"

"How is THIS one different Riku? How?"

"Don't refer to Kairi as 'this one' you bitch!" Riku yelled. The others stirred in their cells.

"ANSWER ME!" she roared back, completely ignoring what he had said.

"Because I'll take care of Kairi."

"Oh...you'll take care of her huh?" Mandy said.

"Yes..."

"Oh...LIKE YOU FUCKING TOOK CARE OF KADENCE AND JESSE! You're just going to use her up and throw her away you slut!"

"Mandy!" he yelled.

"Don't 'Mandy' me!"

"I thought Kairi was your friend!"

"She is my friend Riku...and I'll be DAMNED if I'm just going to let her fall into the hands of a man whore like you!"

"Do you think I don't feel bad about what I did to them?"

"Oh I know you feel bad...but bad habits never change Riku. You said you loved Jesse too...how do you repay her? By leading her on and fucking her into the ground...only to leave her forever when you FINALLY came to your senses."

Riku bent his head down to keep Mandy from seeing his tears.

"Mandy...that was a long time ago."

"It wasn't THAT long ago."

"Well god damn it Mandy, people make mistakes. I'm not perfect."

"That's for damn sure," she grunted.

He bent his head down in defeat. At this point he knew there was nothing he could say to make himself good enough for Kairi in Mandy's eyes. But why should he be? He knew what he did...there was no excusing it. He would probably be acting like Mandy is too...

"How is Jesse?" he said quietly, changing the subject.

"She got into the art school she wanted...By now you're nothing but a bad memory."

Riku then smiled the saddest smile Mandy had ever seen. She wanted to cry...but she had to keep her composure.

"Good..." he said. "She'll be a great artist one day. I know she will."

_Have another drink and drive yourself home_

_I hope there's ice on all the roads_

_And you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt_

_And again when your head goes through the wind shield_

A tear escaped from Riku's eyes. His tears falling from those beautiful irises of his shattered on the ground and sunk Mandy's heart like a stone in the sea.There was a sad and reflective silence in the air.

"Mandy..." Riku finally said, "I know I've made my mistakes...too many and too awful to ever be forgiven...but if anything, this hell hole has given me time to think. It's given me time to think about the things I did and why I did them."

Mandy listened attentively to his soft words.

"Mandy...at that time my life was going downhill so fast. I didn't know why. I would ask a silent God why this had to be me. Why did this life have to be mine? How is any of this possible? I know you, more than anyone, can relate to that."

His words hit home hard. She stroked Daniel's locket hanging around her neck.

"Yeah..." she choked out.

"I was so angry that all of that had to happen to me," he continued, "It was unfair. I was so angry at God for giving me the life I had. I then wanted everyone to feel as lost and hopeless as I did. I wanted to take everyone I possibly could down with me. I did it on purpose for so long, that sometimes I would do it unintentionally. It seemed then that anyone I came in contact with was doomed for horrible things."

Mandy's heart stopped. She closed her eyes and tried not to let his words sink in too much.

"But this place has given me stillness. The stillness that I never got in the outside world. Although now I would like nothing more than to break this stillness, I am still so thankful I got it. Nothing bad can happen to me here. My life stopped being a downward train wreck. And because of that, I now truly feel that if I ever get back into the world, I will never feel the need to take anyone down with me...because I finally got the silence and stillness I wanted."

Mandy hugged her legs tightly to her chest.

"Do you kind of understand?" he asked.

"Yes..." she replied almost inaudibly.

"Mandy..." Riku said. She knew what was coming.

"Don't say it Riku..."

"I took you and Daniel down with me."

He then burst into tears. Mandy couldn't keep her guard up anymore. She also started to cry. But the tears coming from Riku were tears that said this was something he had agonized over for a long time. Mandy scooted close to his cell.

"Riku...please don't cry. None of this was your fault."

"But it is my fault Mandy," he said through his heavy tears, "It's my fault that Daniel is dead and that you're like this!"

"It is not your fault that Daniel is dead Riku."

"Yes it is Mandy...I'm cursed."

"Oh that is a bunch of bull shit!"

"No it's not!" he wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"Riku...Daniel did not die because you are cursed. Daniel died because of his OWN demons. You had nothing to do with it. If anything, you kept him alive longer. And the reason why I am like this is because death births a curse...my curse...the curse of living my life without the one I love the most in this world and any other world out there."

Riku sank his head into his lap as tears continued to make black trails down Mandy's cheeks.

"Thank you for making me feel better..." Riku said quietly.

"You're welcome," Mandy replied.

"God, what a fucked up way to make someone feel better...Everything is just so fucked up."

Mandy sighed. She put her hand up against the glass.

"Riku, I know that this isn't the life that you nor anyone else asks for, but this is the life you have. YOU have to deal with it. It's up to you to just try and get through the darkness and try to see the light that I know you have."

"Kairi..." he said with a smile.

"Yes...you have Kairi. I know things are hard for you Riku, and I'm so sorry that you are forced to deal with the things you deal with. But no matter what...always try and see the light."

Riku looked up at Mandy and smiled.

"I love you Mandy...thank you so much."

"I love you too Riku," she replied with a smile.

"You're my light too Mandy. I'm so thankful to have you as a friend...my best."

A happy tear fell from Mandy's face.

"And you're my light too."

Mandy didn't know it, but at that very time Yuffie (pissed off about not being able to talk to Riku for Mandy) broke into Safe House as well. It was the middle of the night. Yuffie was in the main office. She looked through desk drawers to try and find something of importance, but was mainly finding pens and crumbled up post-its. Then Yuffie turned her back and saw a long line of black cabinets. She opened one of them up and saw rows and rows of manilla envelopes. She hesitantly pulled one out. It was labeled as 0024. She opened it up and saw a picture of a boy with short brown hair and green eyes staring back at her with various information written below him. She opened another one...a girl with black hair and hazel eyes, 0053. Another...a boy with blonde hair and brown eyes, 0016. She then realized that to Safe House these kids weren't kids...they were numbers.

"Fucking fascists..." she said under her breath as she clenched her fists up in rage.

Then Yuffie pulled out another file...0032. She opened it up and found Riku staring back at her. Yuffie read through his information, although she felt bad for it because she felt like she was exploiting him. She began to flip through pages in his file to find some dirt on this horrible place. Then she flipped to a page near the back. She read the heading at the top, and her eyes grew wide in horror. Everything in her shut down.

"Oh my God..."


	14. The Sounds of Chaos

**Chp 14: The Sounds of Chaos**

* * *

Mandy, Kairi, and Yuffie stood shoulder to shoulder in a broom closet at Destiny Island High as the three stared in horror at the file Yuffie held out in her hands.

"This can't be real," Mandy said in shock.

Kairi's lips were sealed shut in terror as her thoughts of Riku made her tremble. She couldn't bear to open her eyes to what the many headlines of the documents in front of her said.

Test 145. Test 162. Test 194. Test 223.

Test

Test

Test

Test

Choas. Everything for Kairi went to chaos. Her mind was twisting and turning around this that was so horrible it was unfathomable. It was like she had just stepped into a horrible, grotesque painting and everywhere she stepped mine bombs would explode and the mirrors were melting. It hurt just to picture everything in her head. Yet, the more her mind snapped over it, the more it didn't seem so impossible. Riku's skin was always so pale….unnaturally pale. Kairi even recalled a time when she could've swore his skin turned a very faint yellow. She closed her eyes and studied his face over and over again. It wasn't hard for her to remember every scar, every freckle, every second of seeing his face. After remembering all the times she had seen him, she then noticed that each time he saw him his eyes grew darker and darker, his cheeks sunk in further, and his voice grew weak. And then she remembered seeing the many empty orange bottles of pills around his cell. She froze in her guilt.

_How could I have not known?_

"I can't believe this," Mandy exclaimed, "This is so fucking corrupt."

"I guess this is what the government does….they test medication on humans so they can say they didn't test it on animals," Yuffie replied.

"Fuck!" Mandy shouted. She kicked over a stand full of mops and brooms. They rolled all over the cement floor.

"I am so god damn mad I can't fucking THINK straight!" she yelled again, her face as red as blood.

"Oh my God….what if there are Safe Houses all over the country?" Yuffie said while turning white. "What if THIS is the fate of every kid who gets fucked out of a foster home?"

Mandy had the demeanor of a serial killer as she paced around the small room, and Yuffie's fists clenched tighter and tighter as she thought of all the illegal medication the Safe House kids could be taking.

"Just think about the medication there is now….I know you've seen those commercials where non-profit lawyers offer to take up cases where people who took stuff like Rydlan, or Prozac, or Zoloft and committed suicide or died. And those are actual government approved medications. This shit they're giving them hasn't even been made completely! Think about what they may be taking!"

"Oh my god, I can't handle this….." Yuffie sighed, "I wonder how many of them have died already?"

"DON'T SAY THAT!" Mandy yelled in the way a teacher would yell at a student who did something wrong.

Mandy and Yuffie had almost forgotten Kairi was there due to her silence.

"We have to do something Mandy," Yuffie said with tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yuffie what the fuck are you talking about? We can't do SHIT!"

"What? Why?" Yuffie said in a shocked tone.

"Yuffie we're teenagers! No one is going to believe us. Teenagers have unprotected sex and give birth at 17, or they go to jail for shop lifting. Teenagers are NOT heroes. This is an adult's world we can not win!"

"Why do you have to be so fucking pessimistic all the time!" Yuffie screamed.

"I'm not being pessimistic I'm being realistic!" At this point Yuffie and Mandy were standing face to face screaming.

"Oh please spare us the emo routine!"

"Quit trying to be clever! There can be no happy ending to THIS story miss sunshine!"

"Kairi you can't possibly side with her can you!" Yuffie screamed as she and Mandy both whipped their heads over at the silent Kairi at the same time.

At first Kairi said nothing. She just remained motionless with her glassy eyes staring at the ground, not moving an inch. She was like a mannequin.

"Kairi?" Mandy said. She and Yuffie exchanged wary glances. A few more moments of silence passed. She finally spoke.

"They're all going to end up like Daniel….."

And with those works Kairi shattered any doubt in Mandy's mind. Her eyes grew glassy and she backed away from the two girls. When Mandy leaned against the wall and cried all her pain out, Yuffie closed her eyes tightly and pretended that she was somewhere far away as tears started to roll down her eyes as well.

"We have to do something…" Kairi said. Yuffie nodded slowly.

"Mandy does have a point though Kairi….what can we do? We're only teenagers."

Kairi glanced over at Mandy. She was now fully collapsed on the floor sobbing so loudly she had no idea why someone in the hallway didn't open the door.

"We'll have to get together and think of something….something BIG. This can't be handled in a bullshit manner….this is serious."

"I know," Yuffie replied.

"But please," Kairi began, "while we are thinking of something to do….I'm begging you….can one of you PLEASE go to Safe House and make sure Riku is safe. I need to know…It's killing me."

"I'll do it…..' Mandy choked through her tears. Kairi and Yuffie gave her concerned looks. Her dark make up was running down her face and seemed to blaze like wild fire against her pale skin.

"Are you sure you're ok to go Mandy?" Kairi asked.

"Yes…." She sniffed. "Don't worry….I'll be fine. I promise."

"Ok….now we need to get to work."

* * *

The minute Mandy placed her boot on the ground in Safe House she immediately regretted it. In Safe House there was always an ever present sense of doom in Safe House, but today it seemed to be more present than ever. The feeling of dread she felt choked up the words in her throat and hindered her thoughts. She walked slowly….as if she was walking in a funeral march. She looked all around her. Today something was different. In every cell she looked in everyone was crying. There wasn't one cage that you couldn't hear tiny sobs coming from. Like the cries of a child who was slowly going to sleep. The sounds of crying were breaking Mandy. Every step she took forward she wanted to take five steps back. With each painful step she took she knew more and more that she was walking towards something that she couldn't bear to find. The further she walked down the hall the louder the crying got. She tried to picture she was someplace else. She tried to forget the fact that the world in front of her was slowly turning to chaos and she couldn't make it stop. In her mind she was lying in an open field with Daniel by her side. They ran their hands over each others scars and smooth skin, and made love under the stars until they burned out into daylight. But Mandy soon had to open her eyes to the real world that was only getting worse and worse. She couldn't walk anymore. She couldn't handle taking in all she had to take this slowly. She had to run. She ran all the way to where she knew Riku was….the sounds of crying growing louder and louder until they started to spin in a circus like way. When Mandy got to where she was going, however, things didn't lessen for her. She looked into Riku's cell and found him sprawled out on his floor crying harder and louder than anyone else.

"Riku…" Mandy said helplessly. There were tears in her breath.

"Riku?" she said one again, louder this time.

"Riku please look at me!" She was crying now. Riku finally looked up at her. He was a wreck. He was in worse shape than Mandy or Kairi had ever seen him. It made her cringe to look at him. He was skinnier than ever and his burning bright eyes seemed to have lost their shine from being buried in the dark dark circles around them. He just looked like all life in him was gone. She snapped out of concentrating on his physical appearance.

"Riku what's wrong with you?" she shouted, "What's wrong with EVERYONE? What is going on!"

Riku continued crying. He gripped his hands into his hair so hard you could hear the strands snapping. Mandy started to get scared. Then Riku lifted his pale, sickly arm and pointed it outwards. Mandy started to turn around.

"Riku I wish you would tell me what's……"

A piercing scream rang through the air.

Mandy slammed hard into the wall behind her as she closed her hands tightly around her eyes, screaming the whole time. The Safe House kids cried harder. They knew that she had finally seen what they had seen.

In the cell diagonal from Riku there lied the most gorgeous dead body anyone could see…..Kayla.

Mandy screamed louder and louder. She ran over to the cell while crying violent tears. She pounded on the wall hard.

"No! No! No!" she screamed over and over again. Kayla lied there so beautiful with her silky blonde hair covering most of her placid face. She was like a slain innocent.

It was too much. Mandy clenched her hand over what of her heart she could feel. She had finally reached the point where she could think thoughts. Her head was ringing. All she could do was cry. Cry and hope that it would bring Kayla back.

"HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN THERE?" Mandy screamed as she whipped her body around at Riku. Riku's face was stained with tears that he couldn't cry anymore.

"A few hours…." He sobbed.

"WHAT!" She couldn't believe what was happening. It was so horrible she didn't even feel like it was actually going on….like this was just a horrible, sick dream.

"What are they going to do with her?" Mandy asked even though she didn't even want to know. You could tell that Riku wanted to cry even more. He was making the sobbing sound but no tears came out. He was all dried up.

"I don't even know Mandy….I don't know. This hasn't happened before.

"Well what do you THINK will happen?" she yelled in an almost menacing way.

"Honestly?" Riku said.

"Yes!"

"Honestly, I think anytime now the Safe House people will walk in and take her body away and burn it in a furnace somewhere."

"WHAT!" she screamed loudly.

"You told me to be honest!"

"No!" she cried again.

Mandy crawled over the edge of Kayla's cell. She placed her hands against the glass and cried until she, like Riku, was dried up too. She banged her fist so hard on the glass that a crack formed, but she didn't even notice her hand bleeding.

"Kayla….." Mandy whimpered. She had never known her. Mandy had never even seen Kayla before this moment, but she had heard her story and couldn't believe that this was the end for her.

Mandy examined Kayla's cell once again. Her crayons and colored papers were scattered everywhere. Her blankets looked like she had just gotten out of bed. Then Mandy noticed that Kayla was holding a tiny plastic hand in hers….her dolls hand….her baby's hand….Madison. Mandy sobbed even harder at that. And then Mandy noticed something under the gorgeous hair that covered her pale dead face….and that was a smile under parted on her pink lips.

Mandy screamed.

"NO! It can't end like this for her! It won't! I won't let it…."

Then, in the most impulsive move Mandy could've made, she stood up and powerfully kicked a hole through the glass with her big boots.

"MANDY!" Riku screamed in a horrified way. A red light and siren went off, but Mandy didn't stop. She kicked until the hole was big enough for her to step inside.

Someone had finally got inside.

Mandy started to grab Kayla's body and lift her up.

"MANDY, NO!" Riku shouted, "I know this is horrible, but don't be stupid. You're not going to get her out of here!"

"SAYS WHO?" she screamed through her tears.

"Mandy they're going to come any second now! There's no way you're going to be able to carry a human body out of here in time. You'll be killed Mandy!"

"What does it matter?" she continued to try and pick her up, but was unsuccessful.

"Mandy….Kayla wouldn't want you to die in vain because of her."

She stopped dead in her tracks. Mandy looked down at Kayla's beautiful body in her arms. She could hear the many footsteps coming for her…her heart pounded. Mandy closed her eyes tightly and her tears fell as she lied Kayla down to rest. But before she stepped out of her cell….Mandy grabbed Madison from Kayla's sign and ran as fast as she could out of Safe House.

* * *

_I couldn't believe it had come down to this. How did this all happen? This can't be me. This isn't my life. This is a nightmare. I'll wake up soon. But wait...this can't be a nightmare because I have an unbelieved angel lying in my lap. Oh don't leave me my love. I can't live without you. I need you. DON'T LEAVE ME DAMMIT! Oh my God, I'm going crazy. Wait...going crazy? I AM crazy! You made me crazy! You made me what I am now! Oh no, I can't blame you. I love you. I love you. I am who I am now because you are a part of me. I REFUSE to live without you. Oh please wake up._

_I pushed the orange tablets away and brushed away the wet, sliver hair that was sticking to his forehead. I held him tight. I never wanted to let go. I wanted to melt within him. I wanted to be his eyelash...a skin cell on his body...something attached to him. God, how did this happen? Was it really that long ago when I was normal? What the hell is normal anyway? If it's anything then I am defiantly not that. This is so wrong. We loved each other too much. We were to dependent on each other? But would I take this unhealthy romance away? Never._

_….I kissed Riku's cold cheeks. This is all my fault. If only I hadn't been gone for so long. I lifted my head up and looked around the room. White. Lonely. A bed lying in the corner. His guitar propped against the wall. All his paintings and drawings scattered across the floor. I looked though the glass that had separated us for so long and watched the other lost souls._

_How did I get here? How did my life boil down to this single portion of time and space? It's funny how a person can have their very lives dangling in the palm of another's hand. And that's how it is now. He has to wake up. He's woken up a thousand times before. Just one more time my love...please..._

"Riku!" Kairi shouted.

She woke up in a cold, cold sweat, breathing like she had been running a mile. Kairi didn't know if she was happy or sad to realize that it was all a dream. In her dream Riku was on the verge of death, but in real life things weren't much different. If her dream was real life at least she would know what was happening. She couldn't take being left in the dark….not knowing whether he was alive, or dead, or just fine, or anything. Kairi clenched her hands in her hair and rocked back and forth. Situations kept playing and playing over and over again in her head….all varying in corruptness and sorrow. Any one of them could be true….it was too much to handle.

Kairi ripped her sheets away from her body and paced around her room….hoping that the chaos surrounding her would silence, but it never did. It drove her crazy.

Kairi opened the door to her balcony and stepped outside. All of Destiny Island lied out before her. She took a deep breath.

A piercing scream rang through the air.

* * *

It was sunset on the beach. Kairi, Mandy, and Yuffie stood together in their winter coats and scarves watching Kayla's doll being burned at their feet. They couldn't have the real Kayla with them, but they decided that she poured so much of her soul into her doll….that Madison might as well have been Kayla herself.

The girls wept silent tears.

"We should say something…." Yuffie said quietly.

"Kairi you should do it," Mandy sniffed, "you knew her the best."

Yuffie nodded in agreement. A tear fell from Kairi's face and hit the cold sand.

"I don't even know what I can say…." she began, "I guess all I can say is that the evil ones who took this beautiful soul away from us will pay. But you know….I think this world wasn't the place for Kayla. She's where she really belongs now….with the other angels. And I know that heaven is a better place now because she is in it."

Yuffie buried her face in her gloves and sobbed, while Mandy kept her eyes fixated on the burning doll. They listened with sad ears as Kairi finished Kayla's eulogy.

"I hope that as we release Kayla into the wind on this sunset, her ashes do whirlwinds in the air as she dances across the sunset. I hope that she is free….free to dance, free to live, free to be the girl she was meant to be without being condemned for it."

Kayla's ashes did do whirlwinds the air that night, and you could ask anyone in Destiny Islands….for they all swore that the stars in the sky shined a little brighter that night.

* * *

**A/N: The next chapter is the big finale. I'm sorry for the delay in updates but this chapter was particularly difficult to write for me. I don't like to rush through stories like these….I don't think it would be as good if I didn't take the time to really focus on everything I can do. So stay tuned everybody….I hope the ending doesn't disappoint you.**


	15. Strangers

**Chp 15: Strangers**

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**A/N**: I'm very sorry but as it turns out, this chapter is NOT the final one. That of course was the plan, but when I started writing all that I had planned to be in the last chapter it turned out to be WAY too long. I mean, not even half of t is 8 pages long. So I'm sorry to disappoint all of you, but the setup is a lot better this way. But I can guarantee all of you that the next chapter WILL be the finale and it will all be worth it.

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Kairi paced around her room as Mandy kept her eyes glued to the computer she was working on. Yuffie's heart beat fast as she sat out on Kairi's balcony watching out for her mother.

"Kairi, when is she supposed to be back?" Yuffie asked with anxiety ringing in her voice.

"Four hours," Kairi replied. Yuffie breathed a slight sigh of relief but quickly looked back out on the land before her, expecting Kairi's mother to creep up at any given moment.

"SHIT!" Mandy shouted out, as she banged her fist down on the mouse pad.

"What!" Kairi and Yuffie exclaimed at once. Kairi rushed over to the computer screen, but Yuffie remained glued to the balcony.

"It's no good…." Mandy sighed, "Safe House is listed in the Destiny Island directory."

Kairi hoped it wasn't true, but she looked on the computer screen and sure enough there Safe House was….with all the other listed businesses and establishments in Destiny Island.

"Shit!" Kairi shouted out in frustration. She kicked her computer monitor in anger, and then turned around to flop face first on her bed.

"Now what?" Yuffie asked. Mandy looked over at Yuffie and sighed in defeat. The two girls cringed as Kairi grabbed a pillow and buried a fierce scream in it. When the scream was over all that was left was a harsh silence in the air.

"God…." Kairi spoke with tears rising in her voice, "I can't believe people just ALLOWED Safe House to happen here."

Yuffie and Mandy grimaced. Neither of them knew what to say.

"Well Kairi….we don't know if anyone but us knows what is REALLY going on there," Yuffie said.

"Yeah!" Mandy replied, "I find it very doubtful that if anyone of higher power knew that the Safe House workers were performing illegal tests on kids they'd just let it go by."

"Oh and why do you think that Mandy?" Kairi demanded, "Homeless people starve to death everyday, and people just let THAT go by. How is this any different?"

"Stop it Kairi, you're being over dramatic," Yuffie said sternly.

The moment at which Yuffie said that couldn't have been worse. Kairi gave a dark and hateful look to her friend. This made Yuffie's insides freeze up a little bit, but she remained headstrong and returned the same look back at Kairi.

"You know-it-all little…" Kairi started to charge after Yuffie like she was going to hit her, but before she could get any closer, Kairi felt Mandy's scrawny arms wrap around her stomach and before she knew it…..Kairi was roughly thrown into a chair by her dresser. Although Kairi had just been assaulted, she couldn't help but be astonished at how strong Mandy was.

Mandy stomped over to the chair and looked Kairi right in the eyes.

"Kairi…." She said grimly, "Stop it. I realize you are over anxious and extremely upset, but that's no need to act like a fucking 12 year old. Yuffie did not do this to you…..so there is no need to take it out on her."

Kairi wanted nothing more than to attack Mandy right back, but she knew that she was obviously no match against Mandy's strength. Kairi instead just looked away from Mandy's glare that was right in her face.

"And another thing….you don't KNOW if the officials of Destiny Island know about what goes on in Safe House or not, and you don't need to dismiss that simply on the fact that you don't trust anything anymore."

"But I don't trust anything anymore…." Kairi said quietly.

"I know that!" Mandy immediately replied, "But we can't just give up on Riku and all the others and let them die all because you don't trust anything."

This would be a time where you would expect Kairi to break down and cry right? Well if this moment had happened a few months ago she would indeed be crying right now. But Kairi had spent too much time crying over the past months. She realized that what did crying solve? Nothing. Tears are for the weak. They don't help anyone or make anything any better. The only way to solve things is to be strong. To be strong and not to waste time crying, because while you're crying the person you are trying to help is only suffering that much longer.

Kairi stood up from her chair and slowly pushed Mandy away from her. Mandy didn't react harshly….she just let her be whatever she needed to be. Kairi walked towards her balcony. She stepped outside and gazed up at the stars above her. It was one of those rare nights when the stars were so numerous you couldn't turn your head without finding a cluster of constellations and clouds that swirled in perfectly with each other. As Kairi gazed up at those clouds spiraling in towards each other she remembered the words she spoke at Kayla's funeral.

_I hope her ashes do whirlwinds in the sunset…._

Even though Kairi was fully aware of the tragedy that was happening at Safe House she couldn't help but smile as she looked at those clouds in the sky. Then Kairi shed a tear, but it wasn't a tear of sorrow. This time she cried because she was happy. She was happy to know that on the rarest and most beautiful of nights that was the time when she could look at the sky and see Kayla's spirit dancing across the night.

Kairi turned around to face her friends. She didn't feel the need to hide her smile or her tears. She didn't need to hide anything from the people standing in front of her.

She smiled even bigger.

"Guys….I think I have an idea."

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It was second period and it was a free day. Everyone sat around on the bleachers in their little groups. Discussions varied from cars, to clothes, to religion. Kairi was nervous. He was sitting with all of his friends. He'd probably be embarrassed by her daring to approach him around them. Kairi shuffled her pink shoes around in the gravel. She wasn't talking to anyone….just trying to build up the courage to talk to him. Every time she would come close to getting the courage….she would then realize she had no idea what to say. Kairi gripped the ends of her green dress in frustration. It was hard to say "fuck it" and just go in a time like this. But she knew she couldn't just stand around and wait for the problem to solve itself.

She started to take her steps forward. Every step felt painful and slow. Her heart was beating like timpani drums. The sound of her foot steps hitting the gravel sounded like earthquakes in her ears. The sound of her heavy breathing tuned out every stupid word anyone around her was saying. Her thoughts ran over and over again in her head.

"_Oh god…oh god…oh god_….," and then before she knew it…….

BAM.

Kairi was on the ground. Everyone pointed and laughed…including him and his friends. She had been so nervous about what she was doing that she had completely lost all sense of sight. She walked right into a trash can and the trash spilled everywhere. Kairi was numb with embarrassment.

_Wow…that was lame._

She couldn't even move she was so embarrassed. And that's when he stood up from his seat and started to walk down the bleachers.

"Ok, ok….that's enough," he told everyone. A few random snickers were let out, but soon everyone forgot about her and went back to their conversations. Kairi watched every step he took as he walked to spot where she laid. She looked up into his eyes as he held her hand out to her.

"Hey Kairi…," he said softly.

"Hi Sora…"

She took his hand and he lifted her off the ground.

"Thanks…," she said, "man that was SO embarrassing."

"Yeah that was quite a fall there," he said with a smile.

The two locked their eyes onto each other and shared a strange gaze. It was funny how eyes you had looked into so many times before could look so unfamiliar. Everything at that moment was so unfamiliar. Kairi had changed so much from the person Sora once knew. It was like looking at a different person. Kairi set her on Sora's soft lips and thought back to all the times they kissed. She remembered the times when she was so absorbed in his kisses that nothing else mattered. She thought back to all the times they had gone far, but not as far as he wanted. Kairi remembered how Sora's warm hands felt on her naked body, his hands caressing her breasts, running slowly down her hips, their bodies collecting heat and sweat together. It was funny how two people who had once known each other in such a way could be such strangers in each others eyes.

"Can I talk to you?" Kairi asked.

"Sure," he replied without a hint of resentment in his voice. That was Sora's style….he was always a gentleman.

The two walked to the very back corner of the bleachers where no one would be able to hear their conversation even if they tried (and they knew that people WOULD try). When they sat down Kairi could tell that he was just as nervous as she was. He chewed down on his gum a little harder than usual and she could see his hands fidgeting through the pockets of his red zip up hoodie. Just remembering all the ways he used to carry himself made Kairi's heart a little fainter.

"So what did you want to talk to me about Kairi?" Sora finally asked. She let out a big sigh and ran her hands through her hair.

"Well Sora…it's kind of a big thing. In fact, it's a REALLY big thing."

He turned his head towards her. Staring into his big blue eyes was like reading a story that was still being written.

"You can tell me Kairi….I don't care what it is, I'm just glad to be talking to you again."

That hit home hard.

Kairi buried her face in her hands and tried to calm down all the nerves and guilt boiling inside of her.

"Oh Sora….you're making this so hard…."

"Kairi…" he scooted closer towards her, "whatever it is you can tell me. Really…I don't care. I've accepted everything."

She lifted her head up and looked back at him. He was so cute…just hanging there waiting for her to tell him the thing that she never wanted to tell him. She took a deep breath and tried to her nerves out.

"Ok Sora….you're not going to like what I tell you, but I really need your help……"

And then Kairi told him everything. She told him all the things he both needed and did not need to hear. She told him about Riku and about how she fell in love with his words, and his songs, his art, and his soul. She told him about Safe House and of all the evil that went on there. She told him about Kayla's death and of all the kids that were facing the same fate. And she told Sora that the night of prom, the reason why she had the breakdown that she did was because she was in love with Riku…a boy she had never even touched before and couldn't stand to be around Sora anymore.

Sora remained tightly wound and wide eyed through her whole speech. He never tried to interrupt her once….he just let it all sink in as it was coming to him. The realizations hit him like a hard slap in the face…the reason why Kairi wasn't talking that night, or the reason why Kairi didn't kiss him back the other night….everything was becoming clear to him in ways that the didn't even want.

Kairi was done talking, but Sora had been silent for quite some time now.

"Sora? Sora?" she asked, trying to get his attention. He was a zombie.

"Sora I am SO sorry" Kairi began, "I know you must…"

"How could you?" Sora interrupted.

The guilt hit Kairi hard. She tried to open her mouth to say something but the words just wouldn't come out. She hung her head in defeat.

"How could you DO this to me?" Sora went off. He got up from off the bleachers and started to pace around, every once in a while running a hand through his hair in a dumbfounded way.

"How could you do this to me Kairi? What did my feelings just STOP mattering to you? Did I just STOP mattering to you? Oh my god, I can't believe this. You….You…."

She knew he wanted to call her a whore, but Kairi knew that even though she and Sora were like strangers now, he wouldn't let those words escape him…even when he was this mad at her.

"What is wrong with you Kairi?" he asked. "What makes you think you can just DO that to someone?"

"I know, I know….," Kairi finally said "I know how you must feel right now…."

"NO YOU DON'T!" he yelled back. Kairi frowned at him.

"Could you PLEASE make this a little easier on me?" she asked sternly.

"Oh yes Kairi," he said sarcastically, "yeah, I'm just going to make this easy on you since everything is always about YOU right?"

Kairi stood up and stared directly at him.

"Shut up Sora! Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think I'm PROUD of this?"

"Oh of course you're proud of this…you're in LOVE!" he mocked, "You just completely forgot about your boyfriend and fell in LOVE!"

"Kiss my ass Sora!" she yelled.

"Oh no…that's RIKU'S field. I didn't even get that far!"

"Sora, don't be retarded. What I did wasn't your fault. It was me not you, so quit acting like such a baby about it!"

"Well what the hell was wrong with you then?" he demanded.

"EVERYTHING was wrong with me!" she yelled back.

"Bull shit….you were fine."

"Ok Sora….RIGHT there. That just goes to show how much you did not know shit about me," she said defiantly.

"Oh, and like you knew EXACTLY who you were?" he shot back.

"No! I did not know SHIT about who I was."

"Wait….so are you ACTUALLY telling me that you didn't know who you were and then you somehow met this Riku guy and then "found yourself"? Excuse me, are we in a 80s teen flick?"

"Shut up Sora…I know it sounds cliché but in a way that's kind of it."

"In a way?" he replied. "Ok well then what did he do then…tell me. I want to know what miracle this guy performed."

Kairi ignored Sora's ass hole comment and told him.

"Riku showed me how to live Sora, because before Riku I wasn't really living. I was dead. I had been playing dead for so long. Riku showed me that I don't have to play dead….that I can take charge of my life. Riku showed me that I don't have to be this perfect, wound up person. He showed me that it's fine just to be. I know you think I was fine before but I wasn't. I was afraid….I was afraid and full of anxiety. I had no mind of my own. I couldn't think for myself. All I ever worried or thought about was what people thought of me….how I was perceived. And that went not only for my friends, but EVERYONE….people I didn't even know. No matter who I was with, there was always a judgment to be made. I thought I was happy being this person that everyone admired and wanted to be but I wasn't. That wasn't me Sora. I didn't want to be admired. I just wanted to be left alone. The girl you went out with was never me. That was just a role I played because I felt like I HAD to. I always felt the need to please EVERYONE. Riku showed me that I don't have to do that. He showed me how to be happy Sora. He showed that it's fine just to be me….imperfect me. He showed me how to live."

Sora was still giving Kairi an angry look but he didn't say anything. As much as it angered him, he let everything she said sink in. He balled up his fists and swallowed back his cringing thoughts. Try as he might though, he couldn't swallow the fact that this person he was so attached to really wasn't the person he thought she was at all.

"I still can't believe you're asking me to help you with this…" he said softly. Kairi dropped all anger she had inside of her.

"Well Sora we need anyone who is willing to help. We need people who are brave…people who actually give a shit about something greater than high school, and who can't sleep knowing that all this wrong is going on. Can't you please just forget about what happened between us and think about that?"

Sora didn't say anything. He was staring at the ground now. Kairi wasn't even sure that he had processed what she said. She stared at him and waited for him to give her an answer. But of course she waited in vain because that answer did not come. Kairi sighed in defeat.

"Fine Sora….I'm sorry I bothered you." She walked back down the bleachers, the iron clinking underneath her shoes. She had walked a few feet down before she stopped, and turned her head back at the motionless Sora.

"And Sora…," she called out. He looked up at her, "if nothing else you could help us because you give a shit about ME."

She stared at him for a few seconds longer before giving up and walking back down the bleachers, jumping onto the pavement, and stepping over the trash she had knocked over. She looked back at Sora one more time before giving up and getting back to the things that were more important at that moment. And even though it hurt, she finally exhaled all of her false hopes.


	16. Author's Note

Author's Note (Finally):

I feel that I should say something about my long, long absence from this story. I began writing _Waste of Paint _when I was fifteen—I'm 21 now. I do not expect the people who have read my story will continue from this point, as they have all probably grown up like I have. Just know, that those fans I did have and the gracious reviews I received meant very much to me and inspired me to keep going. To those fans reading this note now—thank you so much.

This story has been a slow, creeping process for me from the beginning, and my excuses for I made a complete stop are few. The biggest reason is that I went to college. Once that part of my life started, I didn't have the time or the care to continue fan fiction writing. But the other big reason is that I truly did not know how I wanted to continue. I knew how I wanted the last chapter to begin, and how I wanted it to end, but I had no idea about the in between. After thinking about it a long time and being dissatisfied for every solution, I eventually just stopped trying. But I think I have it all figured out now, and I also think perhaps it was a good thing that I waited until this time.

This is a story about growing up for all those involved—the characters and the narrator. I see now that since this story was so connected with my growing up process for me, that I had to keep growing until I finally felt in the place to end this story in a justified way.

It may please some of you to know that I did go somewhere with my writing. I'm a B.F.A. Writing student at Savannah College of Art and Design, and I've had my work published various places. Looking back on my writing then, I feel very embarrassed about my poor narrative. Trust me, this last chapter's wait will be worth it.

Even though I've moved on from my fan fictions days, I have to finish this story—for me and for you.

-Kia Saphia


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